V 


LIBRAPxY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA.  SAN  DIEGO 


3  1822  02667  1404 


5  II 


ROMANCE   AND  TRAGEDY 


ROMANCE  &?  TRAGEDY 


BY 
PROSSER  HALL   FRYE 


BOSTON 

MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 

MDCCCCXXII 


COPYRIGHT,     I922 
BY    MARSHALL    JONES    COMPANY 


THE     PLIMPTON     PEESS    •    NORWOOD    •    MASSACHUSETTS 
PUNTED    IN     THE     UNITED     STATES    OF     AMERICA 


To 
PAUL  ELMER  MORE 

ToOto   yap   novov,  etirep    apa,   av6ei\Kei>  av  Kal  naTttxtv  kv  rw  £1)i>, 
el  av^rjv  e</>eiro  tols  to.  avra  Soyfxara  irtpLirtironinkvois 

Marcus  Aureiius 


NOTE 

OF  THE  papers  printed  in  this  volume  the  first, 
second,  third,  and  fourth  appeared  originally 
in  The  Mid-West  Quarterly  for  April,  1914,  Octo- 
ber, 1913,  January,  1914,  and  July,  191 5,  respec- 
tively; the  fifth  and  sixth  in  University  Studies 
(Nebraska)  for  October,  191 3,  and  July-October, 
191 9.  The  seventh  and  eighth  have  never  been 
published  before. 

The  notion  of  using  Goethe's  phrase,  "  the  illusion 
of  a  higher  reality,"  as  a  kind  of  canon  or  test  of 
literature  —  an  idea  that  I  have  worked  out  after 
a  fashion  in  the  last  two  essays  —  occurred  to  me 
first  in  a  paper  on  Maupassant  which  was  written 
for  the  New  York  Evening  Post  and  was  afterwards 
included  in  my  Literary  Reviews  and  Criticisms 
(1908). 

Logically,  the  paper  entitled  "  Corneille:  the  Neo- 
Classic  Tragedy  and  the  Greek,"  which  appears  in 
the  Reviews  and  Criticisms,  should  stand  in  this 
volume  between  "  Greek  Tragedy  "  and  "  Racine  "; 
but  at  the  publication  of  the  earlier  volume  the 
thought  of  such  a  series  had  not  come  into  my  mind. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    Literature  and  Criticism i 

II.  The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic ... .  21 

III.  German  Romanticism    57 

IV.  Nietzsche   02 

V.     The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy 141 

VI.     Racine   205 

VII.     Shakespeare  and  Sophocles 277 

VIII.    Structure  and  Style 312 


IX 


Romance  and   Tragedy 


LITERATURE   AND    CRITICISM 

IN  THESE  days  of  "  scientific  method,"  when 
there  is  so  little  literary  activity  of  a  genuinely 
critical  sort,  it  is  'a  good  deal  easier  to  say  in  what 
such  activity  does  not,  than  in  what  it  does,  consist. 
That  literary  criticism  is  not  identical  with  a  study 
of  words  or  language,  or  yet  of  texts  or  "  docu- 
ments"; that  it  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  phil- 
ology or  with  the  exploration  of  origins  or  deriva- 
tions, or  the  investigation  of  manuscripts,  or  a  de- 
termination of  the  details  of  literary  history  —  all 
this  ought  to  be  reasonably  clear  on  the  face  of  it, 
and  when  stated  in  so  many  words,  would  probably 
be  conceded  even  by  those  who  have  done  most  to 
cause  the  present  confusion.  That  such  subjects 
and  pursuits  are  very  interesting,  very  important  in 
their  way,  there  is  no  gainsaying.  The  study  of 
etymology  alone  has  been  of  great,  if  indirect  assist- 
ance in  the  comprehension  of  literature,  although 
to  an  hundred  etymologists  there  is  probably  no 
more  than  one  good  critic.  But  still  literature  is 
something  more  than  words  and  lives  with  another 
life  than  theirs ;  they  are  but  the  appurtenances,  and 
neither  phonology  nor  phonetics  will  ever  furnish 
the  basis  for  a  satisfactory  criticism  of  literature, 


2  Romance  and  Tragedy 

any  more  than  a  chemistry  of  pigments  will  suffice 
for  a  criticism  of  painting. 

Nor  is  this  general  statement  less  applicable  to 
the  study  of  "  literary  "  than  of  linguistic  sources, 
rudiments,  and  developments,  however  useful  the 
one,  as  the  other,  to  the  indirect  appreciation  of 
literature.  Unfortunately  it  is  only  too  easy  to  over- 
rate the  importance  of  primitive  and  dialectic  "  lit- 
erature "  —  of  "  communal  poetry,"  for  example,  or 
the  early  Germanic  "  epic  "  ;  or  rather,  to  rate  them 
in  inappropriate  and  misleading  terms.  So  when 
Dr.  Sweet  declares  that  Judith  "  combines  the  '  high- 
est dramatic  and  constructive  power  with  the  utmost 
brilliance  of  language  and  metre  ',"  he  is  obviously 
using  a  fabulous  terminology  which  leaves  nothing 
to  be  said  for  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Sophocles. 

Even  the  name  literature  in  such  a  connection 
must  be  taken  in  a  cautious  and  qualified  way; 
since  it  is  just  the  want  of  a  term  to  distinguish  the 
"  documentary  "  from  the  literary,  which  has  con- 
firmed, if  it  has  not  induced,  the  current  misappre- 
hension. That  a  piece  of  writing  may  have  a  rela- 
tive or  historical  value  without  any  absolute  or 
literary  value,  is  anything  but  an  uncommon  occur- 
rence; indeed,  most  writing  is  of  this  kind.  On  the 
contrary,  it  happens  only  too  often  that  this  tenta- 
tive and  rudimentary  "  literature,"  these  gropings 
and  strayings  of  an  immature  or  defective  culture, 
which  we  are  naively  expected  to  admire  nowadays, 
are  perfectly  indifferent  to  criticism  —  that  is,  to  a 
better  sense  of  the  permanent  significance  of  life, 
and  are  of  interest  solely  to  scholarship  —  that  is, 
to  a  knowledge  and  reconstruction  of  the  past.    For 


Literature  and  Criticism  3 

such,  after  all,  is  essentially  the  difference  between 
the  functions  of  scholarship  and  of  criticism:  the 
former  seeks  to  determine  the  fact;  the  latter,  to 
interpret  it.  While  scholarship  endeavours  to  re- 
constitute the  past  in  its  habit  as  it  lived,  criticism 
attempts  to  liberate  the  idea,  to  set  free  the  mes- 
sage it  has  to  communicate.  In  this  sense  scholarship 
is  "  scientific,"  if  one  likes  the  word;  it  deals  with 
facts,  with  the  thing  itself;  it  is  impersonal  and  in 
its  own  manner  final.  Its  results,  when  once  ob- 
tained, are  definitive  and  are  taken  up  into  the 
common  stock  of  information,  though  their  original 
form  and  method  may  be  superseded  and  forgotten. 
On  the  other  hand,  criticism,  as  an  affair  of  ideas, 
is  necessarily  individual  and  relative;  for  although 
literature  is  itself  essentially  in  the  nature  of  a  per- 
manent contribution  to  human  experience,  its  appli- 
cation will  vary  from  one  generation  to  another  and 
its  interpretation  will  change  with  the  age  —  to  say 
nothing  of  the  further  circumstance  that  its  mean- 
ing is  always  exposed  to  a  personal  reaction.  How 
close  the  connection,  then,  between  scholarship  and 
criticism,  is  at  once  apparent.  But  though  it  is 
perhaps  no  wonder  under  the  circumstances  that 
the  two  offices  of  verification  and  interpretation 
should  be  confounded  —  particularly  in  view  of  the 
unwarrantable  extension  which  has  been  given  of 
late  years  to  the  province  of  philology;  yet  the  two 
are,  in  reality,  distinct,  and  the  integrity  of  our 
thought  requires  that  they  should  be  kept  so. 

In  this  way  the  remains  of  Gothic,  consisting  of 
a  few  biblical  translations  and  a  legal  instrument  or 
two,  constituted  an  historical  find  of  some  impor- 


4  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tance  since  they  served  to  fill  a  gap  in  our  knowledge 
of  the  Germanic  dialects;  but  as  literature  they  are 
naught,  and  may  be  neglected  by  a  sound  criticism 
without  our  suffering  the  slightest  intellectual  incon- 
venience or  the  smallest  arrest  of  moral  growth. 
Even  Beowulf  itself,  that  venerable  monument  of 
Teutonic  ingenuousness,  is,  I  believe,  more  interest- 
ing as  history  than  as  literature,  though  treated 
with  exaggerated  respect  by  our  modern  philological 
scholarship.  At  all  events,  it  ought  to  be  spoken  of 
in  other  and  more  moderate  terms  than  its  admirers 
commonly  use  of  it,  as  though  it  were  in  any  sense 
comparable  with  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey.  "  Scien- 
tifically "  they  are  both,  no  doubt,  the  products  of  a 
barbaric  "  culture  ";  but  the  inability  to  feel  their 
moral  incommensurability  is  in  itself  a  sufficient 
critical  disqualification  for  speaking  of  them  at  all. 
To  the  scholar,  to  the  student,  even  to  the  critic 
himself,  an  acquaintance  with  these  imperfect  ex- 
pressions of  the  human  spirit  is  valuable,  it  must  be 
confessed,  after  a  fashion  —  as  valuable  as  a  famil- 
iarity with  the  history  of  his  institutions  to  the 
statesman.  But  in  the  same  manner  that  the  one 
sort  of  knowledge  is  not  statesmanship,  so  the  other 
is  not  criticism.  The  critic  should  be  thankful  for 
every  scrap  of  information,  no  matter  how  scanty  or 
hardly  gained,  toward  a  better  understanding  of 
things  as  they  are,  of  which  not  the  least  useful  is 
that  which  informs  him  how  they  came  to  be  so; 
but  the  means  must  not  be  mistaken  for  the  end  — 
a  grasp  of  the  facts  for  a  comprehension  of  ideas. 
It  is  all  very  well  to  know  the  recipe  of  the  pudding; 
but  if  we  are  to  avoid  mental  bewilderment  —  and 


Literature  and  Criticism  5 

that  is  perhaps  as  much  as  we  can  expect  to  do  in 
a  world  where  truth  is  largely  a  matter  of  conven- 
tion—  we  must  remember  that  its  enjoyment  is 
quite  another  thing  and  requires  for  its  expression 
an  entirely  different  set  of  terms. 

On  the  other  hand,  just  as  it  is  necessary  to  guard 
against  mistaking  philological  or  historical  for  lit- 
erary inquiry;  so,  too,  it  is  equally  necessary,  in 
the  interests  of  intellectual  clearness,  to  beware  of 
a  like  confusion  between  criticism  and  some  ingen- 
ious analogy  or  illustration  of  the  "  natural "  sci- 
ences. That  the  course  of  literary  development  fur- 
nishes a  suggestive  example  of  the  principles  of 
organic  evolution,  is  undeniable.  But  undeniably, 
too,  though  so  serious  a  mind  as  Brunetiere  has 
failed  to  see  it,  the  illustration  is  biological,  not 
critical.  To  be  sure,  though  a  doctrinaire  by  dis- 
position, Brunetiere  never  succeeded  in  finding  quite 
so  imposing  a  doctrine  and  building  quite  so  hard 
and  fast  a  system  about  it  as  Taine  did;  but  some- 
thing of  the  sort  at  least  he  tried  to  do  with  evolu- 
tion. He  observed  that  the  history  of  literature  is, 
in  reality,  the  history  of  a  succession  of  ideas  of  a 
certain  kind,  and  like  every  succession  of  phenom- 
ena, may  be  made  to  take  on  a  resemblance  to  the 
processes  of  organic  evolution.  That  is  to  say,  if 
a  number  of  things  occur  in  succession,  the  human 
mind  is  bound  to  make  a  series  of  them,  supplying 
the  necessary  connections  and  transitions,  and  gen- 
eralizing the  results  in  one  way  or  another.  In 
the  same  manner  that  a  child  invents  a  fairy  tale 
to  go  with  the  pictures  that  interest  it,  so  we,  chil- 
dren of  a  larger  growth,  make  up  a  story,  sooner 


6  Romance  and  Tragedy 

or  later,  about  the  amazing  panorama  of  existence. 
And  it  was  Brunetiere's  special  attempt  to  fit  this 
story  of  evolution  to  literature.  And  after  this  fash- 
ion, just  as  he  delights  to  recognize  in  letters  the 
familiar  phenomena  of  the  differentiation  and  modi- 
fication of  genres,  the  growth  and  transformation 
and  degeneration  of  species,  so  we  may  too,  if  we 
please,  exercise  our  ingenuity  in  trying  to  show  how 
Dickens's  novels  grew  out  of  the  work  which  pre- 
ceded him  and  how  they  mingle  the  romance  of 
Fielding  with  the  sentimentality  and  realism  of 
Richardson.  But  after  all,  that  is  not  what  we  read 
Dickens  for  —  if,  indeed,  amid  the  constant  solicita- 
tions of  modern  scholarship  we  have  sufficient  lit- 
erary virtue  left  to  read  him  at  all.  Or  again,  we 
may  amuse  ourselves  in  thinking  to  surprise  the 
origin  of  the  English  novel  as  a  whole  in  a  kind  of 
cross,  such  as  Brunetiere  has  so  much  to  say  about, 
between  the  comedy  of  manners  and  the  social  essay, 
such  as  Addison  wrote,  cleverly  deducing  from  the 
former  its  turn  for  modern  detail  and  from  the 
latter  its  moral  seriousness.  But  to  say  nothing  of 
the  fact  that  such  transitions  or  transformations  are 
in  themselves  quite  unintelligible  and  explain  noth- 
ing, this  sort  of  thing  yields  no  just  sense  of  the 
tragic  import  of  a  Clarissa  Harlowe. 

And  the  case  is  no  better  with  the  "  psycholog- 
ical "  interpretation  of  literature  than  with  the 
"  physiological."  To  be  sure,  a  work  of  genius  is, 
in  a  manner,  a  psychological  product  as,  in  another, 
it  is  a  physiological  one.  But  while  such  a  scien- 
tific study  of  genius,  as  it  is  pleasantly  called,  may 
throw  a  good  deal  of  light  upon  the  processes  of 


Literature  and  Criticism  7 

composition  and  may  even  establish  a  kind  of  ex- 
trinsic mechanical  order  among  the  phenomena  of 
literature,  it  fails  dismally  to  express  its  essence  or 
spirit;  and  leaving  such  a  residuum,  it  can  not  be 
properly  reckoned  as  criticism.  For  though  liter- 
ature is  to  some  extent  a  physical  and  psychological 
product,  it  is  to  a  much  greater  extent  a  moral  one, 
of  which  in  the  exact  sense  of  words  there  is  no 
science  possible.  It  is  an  affair  of  principle,  not  of 
law.  What  are  known  nowadays,  ridiculously 
enough,  as  the  moral  sciences  have  to  do,  as  far  as 
they  are  capable  of  exact  formulation,  not  with  the 
moral  order  proper,  but  only  with  certain  physical 
manifestations  or  accompaniments  of  the  moral  na- 
ture. In  other  respects  they  are  purely  descriptive 
and  hence  essentially  literary  in  character.  How 
much  of  the  effect  of  Professor  James'  Psychology, 
for  instance,  depends  upon  the  dexterity  of  his 
phrasing!  And  how  much  of  the  contents  of  any 
modern  psychology  consists  of  ordinary  common- 
places done  over  into  a  kind  of  special  jargon  or 
cant  —  a  sort  of  perverted  rhetorical  exercise,  a 
misty  intellectual  algebra! 

For  this  reason  it  fares  little  better  with  the  soci- 
ological criticism  represented  by  Hennequin,  and  in 
a  modified  and  milder  dose  by  Leslie  Stephen : 

"  If  we  allow  ourselves,"  says  the  latter,  "  to  con- 
template a  philosophical  history,  which  shall  deal  with 
the  causes  of  events  and  aim  at  exhibiting  the  evolution 
of  human  society  ...  we  should  also  see  that  the 
history  of  literature  would  be  a  subordinate  element 
of  the  whole  structure.  The  political,  social,  ecclesi- 
astical, and  economical  factors,  and  their  complex  ac- 


8  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tions  and  reactions,  would  all  have  to  be  taken  into 
account,  the  literary  historian  would  be  concerned  with 
the  ideas  that  find  utterance  through  the  poet  and  phil- 
osopher, and  with  the  constitution  of  the  class  which 
at  any  time  forms  the  literary  organ  of  society.  The 
critic  who  deals  with  the  individual  work  would  find 
such  knowledge  necessary  to  a  full  appreciation  of  his 
subject;  and  conversely,  the  appreciation  would  in 
some  degree  help  the  labourer  in  other  departments  of 
history  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  forces  which  are 
governing  the  social  development.  However  far  we  may 
be  from  such  a  consummation  and  reluctant  to  indulge 
in  the  magniloquent  language  which  it  suggests,  I 
imagine  that  a  literary  history  is  so  far  satisfactory  as 
it  takes  the  facts  into  consideration  and  regards  litera- 
ture, in  the  perhaps  too  pretentious  phrase,  as  a  partic- 
ular function  of  the  whole  social  organism." 

In  extension  of   the  same  principle  Hennequin 
would  transmogrify  criticism  to  the  following  effect: 

■nP"  A  work  of  art,"  he  says  in  La  Critique  Scientifigue, 
"  is  a  collection  of  aesthetic  means  and  effects  tending 
to  excite  emotions  which  have  the  following  special 
signs:  they  are  not  immediately  followed  by  action; 
they  are  formed  of  a  maximum  of  excitation  and  a 
minimum  of  pain  and  pleasure;  in  short,  they  are  dis- 
interested and  an  end  in  themselves.  A  work  of  art  is 
a  collection  of  signs  revealing  the  psychological  con- 
stitution of  its  author;  it  is  a  collection  of  signs  reveal- 
ing the  spirit  of  the  admirers  whom  it  expresses,  whom 
it  assimilates  to  its  author,  and  whose  disposition  it 
modifies  to  some  degree  either  because  of  its  nature 
or  species.  iEsthopsychology  is  the  science  which, 
making  use  of  the  first  of  these  definitions,  develops  from 


Literature  and  Criticism  g 

it  the  second,  third,  and  fourth;  which,  starting  out  in 
this  way,  arrives  at  the  analysis,  then  at  the  synthesis, 
then  at  the  complete  understanding  of  one  of  the  two 
orders  of  great  men,  the  great  artist,  and  at  a  vaguer 
understanding  of  the  vast  social  groups  gathered  around 
him  by  admiration  and  similarity.  " 

And  further,  if  I  may;  it  is  so  curious,  and  so  symp- 
tomatic of  a  kind  of  modern  mind: 

"  iEsthopsychology  is,  therefore,  a  science;  it  has 
an  object,  a  method,  results  and  problems.  An  aestho- 
psychological  analysis  is  composed  of  three  essential 
parts:  an  analysis  of  the  components  of  a  piece  of  work, 
namely,  of  that  which  it  expresses  and  of  the  manner 
in  which  it  does  so;  of  a  psychophysiological  hypothesis 
which  by  means  of  the  elements  previously  disengaged, 
constructs  an  image  or  representation  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  which  they  are  the  sign,  and  which  establishes, 
if  possible,  the  physiological  in  correlation  with  the 
psychological;  and  finally  a  third  step  in  which  the 
analyst,  setting  aside  the  insufficient  theory  of  the  race 
and  milieu,  which  is  exact  only)  for  primitive  literary 
and  social  periods,  and  considering  the  work  itself  as 
a  sign  of  those  whom  it  pleases,  while  remembering 
that  it  is  also  a  sign  of  its  author,  infers  the  former  from 
the  latter.  " 

To  Hennequin's  mind,  therefore,  and  to  some  less 
extent  to  Leslie  Stephen's  also,  literature  is  merely 
a  form  or  mode  of  social  expression,  in  which  so- 
ciety, working  through  the  individual  author,  records 
its  own  psychology  at  a  particular  moment  or  period 
of  its  history,  so  that  criticism  becomes  a  kind  of 
Volkspsychologie,  as  the  Germans  call  it,  and  the 


io  Romance  and  Tragedy 

author  himself  a  mere  transmitter  or  mouthpiece. 
In  measure,  of  course,  the  contention  is  correct. 
In  some  manner  a  book  is  undoubtedly  the  outcome 
of  a  certain  society  and  may  be  explained  to  some 
degree  in  function  of  the  society  contemporaneous 
with  it.  Such  was  Taine's  idea,  which,  narrow  and 
inelastic  as  it  was,  was  at  least  more  liberal  than 
the  dogmas  of  most  of  his  successors.  At  best, 
however,  society  is  but  the  condition,  and  like  all 
conditions,  does  not  originate  but  influences.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  merely  empirical  objection  that  it 
is  often  the  author  who  is,  in  all  seeming,  the  first 
to  divine  and  rescue  truth  and  is  frequently  obliged 
to  impose  himself  upon  his  audience  if  he  would  be 
heard  at  all,  so  that  he  appears  rather  to  form  his 
public  than  to  be  formed  by  it  —  it  is  evident,  in 
addition,  that  a  work  of  literature  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word  is  something  exceptional  by  its  very 
nature.  It  is  the  difference  —  or  as  we  still  say, 
rather  condescendingly,  the  genius  —  which  gives 
the  book  its  value.  It  is  not  the  newspapers  which 
constitute  the  literature  of  a  period.  Mere  unison, 
what  everybody  is  saying,  as  well  as  imitation,  re- 
production, repetition,  fail  to  count.  "  There  is 
nothing  in  the  drama  of  Rotrou,"  says  Brunetiere. 
"  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  that  of  Corneille;  if 
the  work  of  the  former  did  not  exist,  there  would 
be  nothing  lacking  to  the  history  of  our  theatre  .  .  . 
and  that  is  why  his  tragi-comedies  may  interest  a 
few  of  the  curious,  but  have  not  a  place  in  the  his- 
tory of  French  literature."  Only  the  contribution, 
the  distinctively  personal  vision,  is  of  any  permanent 
importance  —  and  it  is  the  work  of  permanent  im- 


Literature  and  Criticism  n 

portance  alone  which  is  properly  literature,  since 
literature  is  obviously  literature  by  virtue  of  its 
message  to  us  who  read  it  and  not  by  virtue  of  its 
expression  of  local  and  temporal  peculiarities.  Pope 
is  still  poetry,  not  because  he  voices  the  ideals  of 
Anne  —  it  is  just  in  as  far  as  he  follows  the  fashion 
of  his  day  that  he  has  been  repudiated  —  but  be- 
cause he  voices  certain  ideas  that  humanity  would 
not  willingly  forego: 

"  And  sure,  if  aught  below  the  seats  divine 
Can  touch  immortals,  'tis  a  soul  like  thine, 
A  soul  supreme,  in  each  hard  instance  tried, 
Above  all  pain,  all  anger,  and  all  pride, 
The  rage  of  power,  the  blast  of  public  breath, 
The  lust  of  lucre,  and  the  dread  of  death.  " 

It  is  sentiments  like  these,  the  sense  of  human  dig- 
nity, that  still  constitute  Pope  a  poet,  not  the  Dun- 
ciad;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  Addison,  the  image 
of  his  time,  is  only  less  of  a  classic  by  that  very  fact. 
Of  this  theory  Paul  Albert,  himself  one  of  its 
more  unsystematic  advocates,  has  such  an  amusingly 
inadvertent  refutation  that  I  can  not  refrain  from 
quoting  it.  "  Before  all,"  he  says  of  criticism,  "  the 
first  thing  to  seek  in  a  work  is  what  makes  its  life, 
what  is  the  soul  of  it.  But  how  to  discover  this  with- 
out replacing  the  work  in  the  milieu  where  it  was 
produced,  without  reconstructing  the  religious,  so- 
cial, and  political  life  of  the  peoples  who  saw  it  born? 
It  is  because  the  work  was  in  intimate  harmony 
with  the  society  for  which  it  was  made  that  it  is 
thought  beautiful."     Very  well.     But  in  another 


12  Romance  and  Tragedy 

moment,  when  brought  face  to  face  with  the  reality, 
how  easily  and  unconsciously  he  relinquishes  a  con- 
tention untenable  in  fact!  A  propos  of  Moliere  he 
declares  that  "  genuine  art  is  a  happy  mixture  of 
the  particular  and  the  general,  of  the  real  and  the 
ideal.  By  many  traits  of  detail  Harpagon  and  Tar- 
tuffe  properly  belong  to  the  seventeenth  century; 
the  total  of  their  physiogonomy  consists,  however, 
of  types  of  all  times  and  all  countries."  Precisely 
so.  That  is  the  distinction  to  which  the  "  sociolo- 
gist "  himself  is  finally  driven  between  great  litera- 
ture and  small  —  its  relative  persistency.  It  is  still 
literature  by  its  appeal  for  us  who  read  it  now,  not 
by  its  appeal  for  those  who  read  it  in  the  past.  In- 
disputably Sophocles  is  an  Athenian  as  Shakespeare 
is  an  Elizabethan;  and  their  plays  are  full  of  local 
and  temporal  allusions  and  insinuations  that  we 
nowadays  find  it  difficult  or  even  impossible  to  un- 
derstand or  detect  —  for  it  is  extremely  doubtful 
whether  we  ever  see  in  the  past,  with  all  the  assist- 
ance that  scholarship  can  give,  just  what  was  seen 
by  its  contemporaries;  so  that  if  Sophocles  and 
Shakespeare  were  nothing  more  than  Athenian  and 
Elizabethan,  they  would  not  be  literature.  While, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  more  than  probable,  that  we 
have  come  to  admire  them  for  many  a  quality  which 
their  own  generation  and,  indeed,  they  themselves 
never  suspected.  For  it  is  only  as  they  yield  a 
meaning  or  significance  for  posterity,  as  they  assist 
their  successors  to  a  better  comprehension  of  life, 
that  they  continue  to  be  literature.  They  are  lit- 
erature only  as  they  are  explicable,  not  in  terms  of 
some  other  subject  or  interest,  but  immediately  and 


Literature  and  Criticism  13 

for  themselves,  and  as  they  have  succeeded  in  sur- 
viving the  society  in  which  they  arose,  while  their 
literary  characteristics  are  those  which  remain  when 
the  peculiarities  of  such  a  society  are  abstracted. 
Even  Taine  himself  is  compelled  in  the  end  to  grade 
the  arts  in  accordance  with  the  duration  of  the 
fashions  which  they  commemorate.  In  a  word, 
literature  is  literature  by  virtue  of  some  exceptional 
and  permanent  significance;  any  discussion  which 
fails  to  bring  out  this  appeal  or  which,  instead  of 
bringing  it  out,  substitutes  other  concerns,  such  as 
philology  or  evolution  or  psychology  or  sociology, 
is  irrelevant  from  the  point  of  view  of  criticism.  I 
do  not  say  that  such  a  discussion  may  not  be  fruit- 
ful —  that  it  may  not  assist  us  in  understanding 
Sophocles'  significance  of  Shakespeare's;  but  the 
main  thing  critically  is  that  significance,  and  what- 
ever is  not  concerned  immediately  with  that  signifi- 
cance, is  not  criticism. 

In  a  sort,  no  doubt,  the  biographical  criticism,  so 
much  affected  by  Sainte-Beuve,  is  in  much  the 
same  case : 

"  In  the  range  of  criticism  and  literary  history,  "  so 
he  expresses  himself  about  it,  "  there  is  no  reading,  it 
seems  to  me,  more  entertaining,  enjoyable,  and  at  the 
same  time  instructive  in  every  way,  than  good  lives  of 
great  men;  not  shallow  and  dry  biographies,  scanty 
and  yet  pretentious  notices,  where  the  writer  thinks 
only  of  shining  and  where  every  paragraph  is  pointed 
with  an  epigram.  I  mean  broad,  copious,  even  diffuse 
histories  of  a  man  and  his  works;  biographies  that  enter 
into  an  author,  produce  him  under  all  his  different 
aspects,  make  him  live,  speak,  move  as  he  must  have 


14  Romance  and  Tragedy 

done  in  life;  follow  him  into  his  home,  into  his  domestic 
manners  and  customs,  as  far  as  possible;  connect  him 
on  all  sides  with  this  earth,  with  real  existence,  those 
everyday  habits  on  which  great  men  depend  no  less 
than  the  rest  of  us;  in  short  the  actual  foundation  on 
which  they  stand,  from  which  they  rise  to  greater  heights 
at  times,  and  to  which  they  fall  back  constantly." 

To  be  sure,  a  study  of  the  author's  life  comes  nearer 
to  the  springs  of  his  inspiration  than  does  any  of 
the  other  studies  that  I  have  mentioned.  But  all  the 
same  the  impertinence,  though  more  subtle,  is  still 
impertinence.  In  any  case,  what  gives  the  writer 
his  sole  interest  for  criticism  is  his  book.  If  he 
happens  to  be  more  remarkable  as  a  character,  he 
belongs  on  that  side  to  history,  not  literature.  Oth- 
erwise, the  light  by  which  he  shines  is  reflected  and 
has  its  source  in  his  writing,  where  it  may  best  be 
sought,  not  in  his  life.  I  am  tempted  even  to  say 
that  a  book  which  requires  a  knowledge  of  its  maker 
for  its  enjoyment  is  necessarily  of  an  inferior  order. 
It  is  no  particular  recommendation  that  so  much  of 
Swift's  work  begins  and  ends  with  Swift.  Even 
Goethe  himself  is  open,  in  many  instances,  to  the 
same  reproach;  to  some  extent  he  has  allowed  him- 
self to  become  subdued  to  the  tyranny  of  his  own 
being.  But  then  Goethe  is  by  all  odds  a  more 
significant  figure  as  a  human  being  than  as  an 
artist.  An  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  personal 
peculiarities  and  doings  of  authors  is  recognized,  and 
correctly  so,  as  the  property  of  the  special  student 
rather  than  of  the  general  or  cultivated  reader. 
There  is  felt  to  be  something  technical  and  profes- 
sional about  it.    To  think  otherwise  is  to  confound 


Literature  and  Criticism  15 

literature  with  life.  The  hero,  the  statesman  —  and 
the  poet  too,  it  may  be  —  belong  in  part  to  the 
world,  whose  recorder  and  critic  is  the  historian; 
the  poem  alone  belongs  to  literature.  And  while  it 
is  well  that  the  literary  critic,  zealous  of  every  side- 
light, should  know  his  man  too,  yet  his  task  is 
largely  a  special  one  and  requires  an  amount  of 
scaffolding  quite  incommensurate  with  the  size  of 
his  edifice  when  finished.  And  so  it  is  —  to  put  a 
term  to  my  enormity  at  once  —  that  there  are  times 
when  in  reading  Sainte-Beuve  I  am  filled  with  im- 
patience at  the  frequent  obtrusion  of  the  writer's 
private  preoccupations  and  the  constant  exhibition 
of  the  critic's  workshop. 

Nevertheless,  I  would  not  go  to  the  other  extreme, 
as  many  do,  and  because  literature  can  not  be  wholly 
contained  by  an  exact  terminology,  protest  that 
criticism  is  nothing  more  than  an  account  of  the 
manner  in  which  a  book  happens  to  strike  us  individ- 
ually. In  this  view  —  the  view  of  Anatole  France 
and  Walter  Pater  —  the  taste  for  literature  is  en- 
tirely an  affair  of  personal  liking;  criticism  is  al- 
together capricious,  illogical,  and  unreasonable  — 
a  story  of  adventure  in  a  library;  the  only  thing 
that  can  be  said  with  certainty  about  a  piece  of 
writing  is  that  we  do  or  do  not  care  for  it.  But 
not  only  is  this  impressionism  as  erroneous  as  any 
of  the  other  conceptions  of  which  I  have  spoken,  it 
is,  if  anything,  more  vicious  because  it  is  more  licen- 
tious and  unprincipled.  For  even  though  literature 
is  not  amenable  to  scientific  formulation,  it  does  not 
follow  by  any  means  that  criticism  is  wanton  and 
unscrupulous. 


1 6  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Life,  for  instance,  eludes  as  a  whole  the  symmet- 
rical categories  of  science  for  the  reason  that  it 
belongs  in  large  part  to  another  order  —  to  the 
moral,  not  to  the  physical  order  with  which  science 
deals.  And  yet  the  irreducible  discriminations  of 
the  individual  consciousness  are  subject  after  a  fash- 
ion to  principle  though  not  to  law  —  so  much  so 
that  there  is  nothing  more  contemptuous  than  to 
call  a  man  unprincipled.  At  all  events,  though  our 
actions  may  be  unprognosticable,  we  are  able  at 
least  to  give  them  some  kind  of  consistency,  to  jus- 
tify or  excuse  them  on  general  considerations  after 
the  fact.  But  our  impression  of  a  book  is,  after  all, 
only  a  portion  of  our  mental  life,  as  the  book  itself 
is  of  its  author's,  and  is  naturally  constituted  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  rest  of  the  experience  to  which 
it  belongs.  While  literature,  further,  is  a  repre- 
sentation or  more  broadly  a  treatment  of  life  as  a 
whole  and  consists  of  the  various  conceptions  or 
visions  or  interpretations,  not  of  the  life  of  a  partic- 
ular time  or  age  exclusively,  but  of  the  life  of  human- 
ity at  large,  including  not  merely  its  active  or  ob- 
jective life  —  its  manners,  customs,  and  usages  — 
but  also  its  inner  or  conscious  life  —  its  thought, 
emotion,  and  reflection;  and  its  author's  merit  is 
measured  by  the  value  which  his  view  of  these  mat- 
ters has  for  the  race.  Is  his  view  of  life  conformable 
with  moral  experience,  is  it  elevated  and  sustaining, 
does  it  help  to  free  us  from  the  tyranny  of  ap- 
pearance and  of  the  phenomenal,  does  it  aid  us  to 
bear  misfortune  and  prosperity,  injustice  and  flat- 
tery, does  it  strengthen  and  confirm  our  spirit  and 
save  us  from  ourselves;  then  it  is  good  literature  and 


Literature  and  Criticism  17 

a  permanent  contribution  to  human  culture.  For 
however  it  may  be  with  the  physical  world  with 
which  science  undertakes  to  deal  —  whether  its 
order  be  inherent  or  imputed;  it  has  been  necessary 
at  all  events  for  man  to  organize  for  himself  the 
moral  world,  the  world  in  which  he  lives  the  most. 
The  knowledge  of  himself  and  of  his  proper  aim  and 
activity,  the  distinction  between  the  human  and  the 
brute,  the  sense  of  a  social  nature,  of  principle  and 
duty,  of  right  and  wrong,  even  the  feeling  for  seem- 
liness  and  beauty  —  all  these  acquirements  have 
been  the  result  of  a  long  and  uncertain  development, 
the  contribution  of  many  hands.  To  be  sure,  there 
is  confusion  enough  as  it  is.  But  these  acquisitions 
of  the  human  spirit,  these  partial  dispersals  of  chaos, 
have  been  confirmed  and  perpetuated  by  literature, 
which,  even  if  it  has  not  created  the  moral  illusion, 
has  given  it  form  and  currency. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  any  serious  discussion 
of  literature  should  have  to  do,  first  of  all,  with  the 
conception  of  life  included  in  the  work  —  not  with 
life  alone,  for  literature  is  not  life  itself  but  its 
reflection  in  a  consciousness  essentially  moral;  and 
not  the  book  alone,  for  the  book  is  merely  the  record 
of  a  reflection  —  but  with  the  relation  between  the 
two,  or  in  other  words,  with  the  attitude  of  litera- 
ture to  life.  Should  this  relation  be  broad  and  gen- 
eral, as  in  the  case  of  an  entire  national  literature 
like  the  Greek,  or  rather  more  restrictedly,  of  some 
large  literary  movement  like  German  romanticism: 
then  the  criticism  will  be  broad  and  general  too  and 
will  aim  to  show  the  manner  in  which  this  national 
literature  as  a  whole  or  this  literary  movement  as 


1 8  Romance  and  Tragedy 

a  whole  has  confronted  the  problem  of  existence. 
Or  the  relation  may  be  narrow  and  particular  or 
even  individual,  as  in  the  case  of  a  single  author  like 
Shakespeare;  and  under  these  circumstances  the 
criticism,  adapting  itself  to  the  subject,  will  become 
individual  too  and  will  have  to  show  what  Shakes- 
peare answered  to  the  most  pressing  questions  which 
life  proposes.  Naturally,  such  a  criticism  will  not 
expect  of  literature  a  replica  or  pastiche  of  actuality. 
It  will  look  rather  for  the  harmonious  adjustments 
of  the  human  spirit,  the  establishment  of  a  rhythmic 
conscious  order  among  the  promiscuous  elements  of 
experience.  And  in  so  doing,  it  will  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  calling  in  assistance  from  any  department 
of  investigation  that  is  likely  to  throw  a  light  upon 
the  matter  —  whether  physiological,  psychological, 
sociological,  or  what  not;  though  it  will  try  to  avoid 
mistaking  such  answers  as  it  may  get  from  these 
sources  for  answers  to  its  principal  inquiry.  And 
inasmuch  as  the  life  which  is  both  the  subject  and 
object  of  literature,  is  neither  scientific  nor  yet  un- 
principled but  broadly  moral;  our  criticism  will  be 
neither  scientific  nor  impressionistic,  but  will  con- 
sist in  a  free  play  of  the  intelligence  just  as  life 
does.  It  will  be  based  on  general  principles,  which, 
though  elastic,  are  broader  than  the  observation  of 
a  single  case,  and  which  are  capable  of  being  ex- 
plained and  justified,  as  our  conduct  is,  rationally 
and  intelligibly,  if  nothing  more. 

Now,  if  these  considerations  are  just,  though  only 
in  a  limited  and  partial  measure,  it  would  seem  to 
be  high  time  that  criticism  were  busying  itself  with 
the  foundations  of  such  a  study  —  or  were  at  least 


Literature  and  Criticism  19 

establishing  certain  common  grounds  or  postulates 
to  which  its  conclusions  might  be  referred  with  the 
effect  of  ending  all  critical  divergencies  or  at  least 
of  justifying  their  existence.  In  comparison  with 
the  age  and  the  pretensions  of  the  subject  is  it  not 
astounding  that  there  is  yet  so  little  substantial 
agreement  with  regard  to  the  significance  and  ration- 
ale of  the  simplest  literary  phenomena?  To  all 
appearance  it  is  still  impossible  for  any  two  critics 
to  agree  as  to  the  proper  relation  in  general  of 
literature  to  life,  as  it  is  to  appeal  to  any  accepted 
canon  by  way  of  settling  their  disputes.  One  opin- 
ion proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  literature  and 
life  are  or  should  be  identical;  another,  that  they 
are  diverse,  though  without  venturing  to  define  the 
difference.  Of  the  former  party,  one  assumes  that 
it  is  the  closeness  of  the  imitation  that  makes  lit- 
erature; another,  that  it  is  the  technical  skill,  the 
trick  of  style,  the  verbal  coquetry  of  the  rendering. 
Of  a  stanza  of  Browning's  Lover's  Quarrel,  which 
retails  the  heroine's  costumes,  Mr.  Chesterton  ob- 
serves that  it  "  would  almost  serve  as  an  order  to 
a  dressmaker  and  is  therefore  poetry,"  while  a  re 
viewer  cites  the  remark  as  an  amusing  illustration 
of  Mr.  Chesterton's  ignorance  of  the  very  nature 
of  poetry.  But  Mr.  Chesterton  is  either  right  or 
wrong.  If  he  is  wrong,  there  should  be  some 
way  of  bringing  him  to  terms.  If  he  is  right, 
there  should  be  some  way  of  silencing  his  detractors. 
It  is  scandalous  that  at  this  time  of  day  a  man  may 
make  any  statement  about  the  rudiments  of  litera- 
ture without  fear  of  shame  or  ridicule.  Is  there 
another  subject  of  consequence  in  which  such  reck- 


20  Romance  and  Tragedy 

lessness  would  be  tolerated,  much  more  applauded 
as  though  it  were  an  admired  qualification  in  an 
authority? 

And  yet  this  is  a  problem  which  lies  at  the  very 
roots  of  criticism;  for  how  is  it  possible  to  determine 
the  merits  or  even  the  character  of  a  piece  of  work 
while  the  aim  and  intention  of  its  existence  are 
uncertain?  How  can  we  form  an  opinion  about  a 
literary  product  before  we  know  what  literature  in 
general  ought  to  do  —  or  at  all  events  what  it  actu- 
ally has  done?  Nor  is  the  problem  insoluble,  much 
as  the  factiousness  of  modern  criticism  may  have 
embroiled  it.  At  least  there  ought  to  be  compara- 
tively little  difficulty  in  stating  it  fairly,  even  though 
it  may  not  be  possible  all  at  once  to  reconcile  indi- 
vidual prejudices  or  preferences  for  one  literary  posi- 
tion rather  than  another.  Community  of  opinion  in 
all  such  matters  is,  like  every  work  of  construction, 
an  affair  of  slow  and  laborious  cultivation.  Right 
reason  gradually  prevails;  a  canon  finally  develops. 
But  it  must  be  preceded  by  copious  discussion,  by 
a  clear  recognition  and  exhibition  from  every  side 
of  all  the  facts  in  their  proper  character. 


THE    TERMS    CLASSIC     AND     ROMANTIC 

IN  THE  "  Postscript  "  to  his  Appreciations  Walter 
Pater  has  undertaken,  albeit  rather  light-heart- 
edly, a  task  of  the  first  importance.  Not  only  does 
he  pretend,  like  most  modern  critics,  to  distinguish 
literature  in  a  loose  and  general  way  as  classic  and 
romantic,  and  to  explain  its  most  violent  contrasts 
as  the  expression  of  an  irreconcilable  antinomy  in 
human  nature;  he  also  proposes  to  examine  the  two 
parties  to  the  dispute  in  hopes  of  determining  their 
essential  character  and  significance.  As  for  the 
division  itself,  that  is  patent,  he  considers,  on  the 
very  surface  of  literature  in  a  stricter  and  more 
traditional  tendency  and  a  freer  and  more  innovat- 
ing or  radical  one.  The  poetry  of  Pope  is  very  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  Shakespeare;  the  former  is 
marked  by  an  instinct  of  contraction,  the  latter  by 
an  instinct  of  expansion.  And  it  is  not  difficult  to 
see  that  every  author,  taken  as  the  term  of  a  similar 
comparison,  is  actuated  by  one  impulse  or  the  other. 
Racine,  to  be  sure,  is  not  very  much  like  Pope;  but 
as  contrasted  with  Calderon,  he  evidently  practises 
a  severer  and  more  formal  art,  he  is  more  restrained 
and  forbearing.  While  in  the  same  way  that  one 
writer  is  less  exuberant  than  another  and  assumes 
a  more  reserved  attitude  toward  life,  so  too  one 
literature  or  one  period  of  literature  will  evince  the 
same  disposition  more  strikingly  than  some  other 


22  Romance  and  Tragedy 

literature  or  period.  French  as  a  whole  has  always 
been  more  cautious  than  English;  while  in  English 
the  age  of  Dryden  was  much  more  contained  than 
that  of  Tennyson  and  Browning,  and  in  French 
again  the  age  of  Louis  XIV  was  one  of  reservation 
par  excellence. 

To  be  sure,  such  instances  do  not  go  very  far  or 
burrow  very  deep.  It  is  true  that  the  writers  of 
modern  times  may  be  readily  grouped  into  two 
classes  as  they  have  looked  at  life  more  directly 
and  immediately  and  as  they  have  looked  at  it 
through  the  medium  of  books  and  previous  interpre- 
tation. At  the  same  time,  it  is  difficult  —  or  rather, 
impossible  —  for  any  one  to  write  nowadays  without 
being  conscious  of  his  predecessors  and  without 
being  seriously  affected  by  their  example.  The 
ghosts  of  our  ancestors  haunt  and  coerce  us;  and  al- 
most imperceptibly  we  find  ourselves  yielding  to 
their  silent  but  persistent  influence.  It  is  we  who  are 
the  ancients;  and  at  first  thought  it  would  seem 
as  though  we  were  fatally  bound  over  to  authority 
by  virtue  of  our  historical  position,  in  spite  of  the 
startling  accumulation  of  new  fact  which  works 
constantly  to  distract  and  dilate  our  minds,  while 
the  contrary  appears  the  case  with  ^schylus  and 
Sophocles  —  they  had  not  to  resist  the  tyranny  of 
tradition,  even  though  life  might  have  been  in  itself 
less  varied  and  clamorous  for  them  than  it  is  for 
us.  At  all  events,  they  saw  it  as  independently  as 
Shakespeare  and  Calderon,  and  what  they  saw  was 
equally  perplexing  and  disquieting.  And  yet  it  is 
they  who  have  come  to  be  reckoned  the  representa- 
tives of  literary  conservatism. 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  23 

But  superficial  as  these  examples  may  be  and 
far  as  they  are  from  touching  bottom,  they  do  at 
least  serve  to  illustrate  what  is  so  much  a  matter  of 
general  consciousness  that  every  modern  critic  of 
any  competence  has  recognized  it  in  whole  or  in 
part,  under  one  name  or  another  —  ancient  and 
modern,  naive  and  sentimental,  objective  and  inter- 
esting, pure  and  ornate,  expressive  and  suggestive, 
Apollonian  and  Dionysian  —  the  existence,  namely, 
of  two  distinct  and  contradictory  views  of  the  poet's 
function  and  its  exercise,  dividing  the  field  of  lit- 
erature, regardless  of  minor  irregular  bickerings, 
into  two  opposed  and  irreconcilable  camps,  which 
have  finally  come  by  common  usage  to  be  distin- 
guished, rather  loosely  if  conveniently,  as  classic  and 
romantic. 

To  the  continued  use  of  these  current  terms  in 
such  a  broad  and  inclusive  sense  to  denote  a  uni- 
versal distinction,  not  as  between  an  uncertain  better 
and  worse,  but  as  between  two  more  or  less  incom- 
mensurable literary  denominations,  there  is  at  pres- 
ent one  serious  drawback.  Like  most  handy  and 
suggestive  words  which  are  not  the  peculiar  prop- 
erty of  some  technical  study  these  terms  have  been 
appropriated  to  so  many  partial  and  particular  uses, 
to  say  nothing  of  their  laxer  and  more  popular 
employments,  and  have  finally  developed  so  many 
implications  and  associations  that  they  have  become 
a  kind  of  intellectual  stumbling-block  and  source  of 
misunderstanding,  not  only  in  ordinary  speech,  but 
also  in  criticism.  And  as  Pater,  in  spite  of  something 
like  an  implicit  promise,  has  failed  to  disentangle 
the  snarl  of  meanings  in  which  they  are  now  involved 


24  Romance  and  Tragedy 

—  has  been,  indeed,  like  most  critics,  less  interested 
in  doing  so  than  in  adding  another  kink  of  his  own, 
and  setting  out  to  clear  up  the  confusion,  has,  if 
anything,  further  embroiled  it;  it  may  be  excusable, 
under  the  circumstances,  to  attempt  the  task  anew 
in  the  mere  hope  of  dispelling  a  little  of  all  this 
verbal  perplexity  and  without  the  pretension  to  in- 
crease the  number  of  definitions  with  which  the 
subject  is  already  encumbered. 


Derivatively,  classic  signifies  obviously  enough 
that  which  forms  a  class  or  order;  and  hence 
as  applied  to  literature,  it  comes  to  refer  to  any 
acknowledged  model  or  example  of  excellence.  In 
this  broad  and  general  acceptation,  which  may  be 
designated  for  convenience  as  the  popular  meaning 
of  the  word,  every  literature  has  its  own  classics 
irrespectively  —  English,  French,  German,  and 
Spanish,  as  well  as  Greek  and  Latin;  and  Shake- 
speare and  Calderon  are,  without  further  reserves, 
as  fairly  classics  as  Sophocles  and  Virgil,  although 
they  differ  so  widely  in  spirit  and  method.  And 
however  the  word  may  be  applied,  or  in  whatever 
connection  it  is  used,  it  still  raises,  to  the  prejudice 
of  romanticism,  a  faint  but  perceptible  reminiscence 
of  this  primary  notion  of  standard  and  pattern  merit, 
as  when  Goethe  remarks  simply  that  classic  is  sound, 
romantic  unsound  literature. 

In  order  to  understand  the  secondary  meaning  of 
the  term  in  literary  usage  it  is  necessary  only  to  re- 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  25 

member  that  modern  literature  is  a  flower  of  recent 
growth.  Three  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  there 
was  little  or  nothing  of  it  in  existence.  Or  if  there 
were  standing  a  few  of  those  great  monuments  which 
now  loom  so  gigantic  on  our  horizon,  they  were  by 
no  means  the  objects  of  deferential  admiration  and 
emulation  which  they  have  since  become.  To  our 
earlier  critics  as  to  those  of  the  Renaissance  the 
standard,  the  class-forming  writings  were  Latin  and 
Greek.  They  were  the  classics,  the  paradigms  of 
all  expression.  As  such  they  have  formed,  until 
recent  years,  the  basis  of  study  in  college  and  uni- 
versity, and  have  perpetuated  this  particular  sense 
of  the  term  so  that  still  among  students  and 
scholars  and  even  among  the  intelligent  general  pub- 
lic classic  is  used  of  Greek  and  Latin  literature  as 
much  as  of  anything.  Whence  this  may  not  be  im- 
properly styled  the  academic  acceptation  of  the 
word. 

But  the  conception  undergoes  a  further  change. 
By  a  natural  abstraction  the  same  term  comes  to  be 
applied,  not  merely  to  Greek  and  Latin  literature  in 
particular,  but  to  the  spirit  in  general  illustrated  in 
these  literatures.  It  refers,  not  only  to  Sophocles' 
tragedy  and  Virgil's  epic,  but  also  to  such  qualities, 
wherever  found,  as  are  characteristic  of  these  works 
—  notably  an  extreme  susceptibility  to  the  moral 
significance  of  the  subject,  resulting  externally  in  a 
sense  for  order,  balance,  moderation,  measure,  and 
the  like  —  in  short,  to  a  certain  easily  recognizable 
manner  of  conceiving  and  rendering  life.  For  these 
general  characters,  as  disassociated  from  any  partic- 
ular age  or  race,  classic  becomes  a  handy  designation 


26  Romance  and  Tragedy 

and  may  be  appropriated  to  any  writer  or  group  of 
writers  so  marked,  no  matter  what  the  period  or 
language.  In  this,  which  may  be  labelled  the  critical 
sense  of  the  word,  it  has  become  permissible  to  say 
in  a  general  way  that  Pope  and  Addison  in  English, 
Racine  and  Voltaire  in  French,  and  Goethe  in  Ger- 
man are  all  classic,  because  they  display  more 
or  less  consistently  certain  peculiarities  which  find 
their  clearest  expression  in  Greek  and  Latin.  And 
it  is  permissible  also  to  add  that  French  literature  is, 
on  the  whole,  more  classic  than  English  or  German, 
because  it  has  made  so  much  more  of  these  qualities. 
And  it  is  permissible  even  to  speak  of  Shakespeare 
himself  as  classic  in  some  respects  and  of  Goethe  as 
sometimes  classic  and  sometimes  not  according  as 
either  seems  animated  by  this  spirit  or  another.  And 
finally  it  may  be  said  that  a  given  period  or  a  given 
school  is  classic  as  it  is  remarkable  for  such  a  dis- 
position, like  the  age  of  Anne  in  English  or  Louis 
XIV  in  French. 

Of  course,  it  is  a  misrepresentation,  though  not 
an  uncommon  one  among  romanticists,  to  speak  as 
though  Pope  and  Goethe  and  Racine  were  classic 
because  they  imitated  the  Greeks  or  the  Romans, 
or  even  because  they  wrote  something  like  them. 
That  is  not  the  idea.  A  writer  is  classic,  not  because 
he  writes  like  some  one  else,  but  because  he  writes 
in  a  certain  spirit,  because  he  maintains  a  certain 
attitude  toward  life.  Whenever  this  spirit  makes 
itself  apparent  in  an  author  or  a  period  or  a  litera- 
ture, there  we  have  a  classic  author  or  period  or 
literature.  To  be  sure,  the  writings  in  which  this 
spirit  attains  its  purest  and  most  perfect  expression 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  27 

belong  to  the  past  —  as  do  Shakespeare  and  Cal- 
deron  for  that  matter;  though  the  romanticists  have 
not  been  slow  to  emphasize  this  suggestion  of  age 
and  decrepitude,  to  which  the  word  so  easily  lends 
itself,  as  an  offset  to  the  notion  of  standard  per- 
fection implicit  in  its  popular  use.  Properly,  the 
classical  character  is  intermittent;  it  is  neither  ar- 
chaic nor  obsolete,  but  reappears  at  every  revival  of 
the  great  tradition  of  culture,  though  since  the 
French  Revolution  it  has  ceased  to  influence  any 
important  portion  of  our  civilization.  And  further, 
since  every  modern  classic  has  looked  to  Greek  orig- 
inals or  their  Latin  reflections  for  encouragement 
or  inspiration,  it  is  the  modern  habit  to  speak  as 
though  imitation  and  conventionality  were  invari- 
able principles  of  classicism.  Such  an  imputation, 
however,  belongs  to  the  word  only  in  certain  of  its 
narrower  and  more  controversial  definitions.  The 
classicism  of  Dryden  and  Pope  was  undoubtedly 
imitative  and  conventional  pretty  nearly  by  defini- 
tion; so  were  almost  all  the  romantic  recommence- 
ments, which  threw  back  to  Shakespeare  much  more 
impudently  than  the  classicists  to  Sophocles  or  Eurip- 
ides. It  is  infinitely  amusing  to  find  Stendhal  re- 
proving his  countrymen  for  their  slavish  imitation 
of  Racine  and  exhorting  them  in  the  same  breath  to 
mimic  Shakespeare.  After  all,  imitation  and  con- 
vention are  partly  unfortunate  effects  of  chronolog- 
ical position  and  generic  decadence,  and  do  not 
affect  the  essential  nature  of  either  party;  for  I 
suppose  that  it  will  be  readily  conceded  that  Shake- 
speare and  Sophocles  are  as  original  the  one  as  the 
other,  while  Calderon  illustrates  the  process  of  con- 


28  Romance  and  Tragedy 

ventional  petrifaction  as  convincingly  as  Dryden  or 
Pope,  if  not  more  so. 

To  distinguish  a  little  more  carefully,  therefore, 
the  assumption  of  the  term  by  those  who  have  under- 
taken of  set  purpose  to  imitate  or  reproduce  the 
models  of  Greek  or  Latin  literature  or  what  they 
have  regarded  as  the  essential  qualities  of  these  lit- 
eratures or  of  classicism  in  general,  must  be  con- 
sidered as  a  kind  of  misappropriation.  In  this  use 
the  word  is  identical  with  what  is  more  properly 
known  as  pseudo-classicism  and  covers  not  only  such 
tragedy  as  Ponsard's  and  Delavigne's  but  much  of 
Voltaire's  also.  Undoubtedly,  an  excess  or  abuse 
or  misapplication  or  falsification  of  classicism,  in- 
clining to  dryness,  rigidity,  and  stultification,  were 
to  be  viewed  as  pseudo-classic  in  a  close  discrimi- 
nation. In  any  case,  these  deviations  of  classicism 
have  their  pendant  in  the  various  schools  of  romanti- 
cism, each  of  which  has  insisted  in  a  somewhat  simi- 
lar fashion  upon  some  one  set  of  romantic  characters 
to  the  exclusion  of  others  and  has  given  in  this  way  a 
particular  turn  to  the  romantic  spirit.  At  the  same 
time  there  is  always  something  romantic  in  every  ro- 
mantic school.  They  are  both  estuaries  of  their  re- 
spective oceans.  And  bad  as  pseudo-classicism  may 
sometimes  be,  it  contains  at  worst  a  little  classic 
leaven,  as  the  romantic  schools  at  best  are  always 
infected  with  the  general  romantic  virus. 

The  word  romantic  has  suffered  a  series  of  vicis- 
situdes even  more  bewildering  than  those  of  classic. 
Popularly  it  designates  whatever  succeeds  in  com- 
bining with  a  certain  charm  or  fascination  the  un- 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  29 

usual,  the  irregular,  the  striking,  and  the  exceptional. 
In  the  first  instance,  it  seems  to  have  derived  this 
popular  significance  from  its  association  with  the 
corrupt  dialects  of  the  Latin  and  the  vernaculars 
which  grew  out  of  them,  in  exact  parallelism  with 
the  modern  philological  use  of  romance.  Any  writ- 
ing composed  in  one  of  these  vernaculars  would  be 
romantic  in  distinction  from  a  composition  in  classic 
Latin.  But  from  the  very  character  of  these  "  ro- 
mances "  with  their  lax  sense  of  moral  reality  and 
their  vagrancy  of  imagination  the  adjective  comes 
to  cover  the  abstract  qualities  so  embodied,  as  in  the 
popular  use  of  the  word ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  it 
would  naturally  be  transferred  to  any  writing  or 
group  of  writings  which  might  cultivate  such  a 
general  manner  or  propose  to  imitate  or  revive  the 
spirit  of  these  productions.  Such  is  A.  W.  Schlegel's 
account  of  the  matter:  "  By  the  word  romantic, 
romance,  were  designated  the  new  dialects  which 
arose  from  the  mixture  of  Latin  with  the  tongues  of 
the  German  conquerors  —  hence  the  compositions 
written  therein  were  called  romances;  whence  is 
derived  the  term  romantic,  and  the  character  of  this 
poetry  consists  in  the  amalgamation  of  old  German 
with  the  later  or  christianized  Roman,  so  that  its 
elements  are  already  indicated  by  its  names."  In 
such  fashion  the  name  was  assumed  by  the  romantic 
school  in  Germany,  which  aimed  more  or  less  de- 
liberately at  a  resuscitation  of  mediaevalism  —  or 
better,  perhaps,  at  a  substitution  of  national  antiq- 
uity and  tradition  for  a  foreign  and  humanistic  one 
—  as  well  as  by  those  of  France  and  England  —  if 
England  may  be  said  properly  to  have  had  a  roman- 


30  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tic  school  —  which  had  their  eyes  to  some  extent  on 
mediaeval  subjects  if  not  on  mediaeval  ideals. 

And  still  further,  on  the  strength  of  a  similar 
etymology,  the  German  romanticists,  under  the  lead- 
ership of  Friedrich  Schlegel,  tried  to  make  out  an 
affiliation  between  romanticism  and  romance  in  the 
later  sense,  Roman,  and  to  establish  the  more  roman- 
tic forms  of  the  novel,  itself  the  putative  successor 
of  the  "  romance,"  as  the  type  and  pattern  of  roman- 
tic literature.  "  And  so,"  in  the  words  of  A.  W. 
Schlegel,  "  the  romance  [Roman]  .  .  .  stands  fore- 
most in  the  newer  poetry  —  a  genre  which  is  capable 
of  representing  the  whole  thereof.  We  shall  see  that 
the  great  modern  dramatists  —  yes,  the  entire  form 
of  our  drama,  must  be  judged  on  the  principle  of  the 
romance."  Nor  is  the  relation  solely  a  fanciful  one, 
if  the  attention  is  fixed  on  what  we  now  call  ro- 
mance as  distinguished  from  novel,  which  has  been 
sobered  and  "  classicized  "  to  a  great  extent  by  the 
influence  of  the  drama,  something  as  the  rough  com- 
edy of  the  Greeks  was  chastened  by  the  example  of 
their  tragedy. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  French  critics  have  come 
to  consider  that  the  perfecting  of  their  classic  trag- 
edy consisted  in  the  retrenchment  of  romantic  ele- 
ments and  a  consequent  separation  from  romance 
with  which  it  was  at  first  entangled.  To  speak 
exactly,  then,  and  with  the  double  shading  of  the 
word  romance  in  mind,  there  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
only  one  tragedy,  the  French  itself  and  the  Greek, 
which  arrived  at  the  same  result  in  another  way. 
All  other  tragedy  contains  a  greater  or  less  admix- 
ture of  romance,  in  the  shape  at  least  of  epical, 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  31 

"  chronicle,"  or  "  heroic  "  elements.  To  be  sure, 
the  dramatic  genre,  even  at  its  loosest  appears  in 
itself  more  classical,  by  virtue  of  its  superior  organi- 
zation, than  does  narrative  or  "  story  "  of  any  kind, 
as  is  evident  from  a  comparison  of  As  You  Like  It 
with  Lodge's  Rosalind,  or  of  Julius  Ccesar  with 
North's  Plutarch,  or  even  of  Fielding's  comedies 
with  his  Tom  Jones.  But  still  irregular  tragedy  — 
or  for  that  matter  romantic  drama  as  a  whole  — 
represents  a  relatively  undifferentiated  form.  In 
Shakespeare  and  Calderon,  for  example,  the  essen- 
tial character  of  chronicle  and  heroic  poem  is  often 
so  obtrusive  that  it  can  not  be  overlooked,  even 
with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  not  only  in  scenario 
but  in  movement  and  plot,  to  say  nothing  of  theme. 
Indeed,  in  Calderon  the  play  is  regularly  nothing 
more  than  a  romance  cut  up  into  lengths  for  the 
stage;  while  this  is  exactly  the  direction  of  Shake- 
speare's decadence  in  The  Winter's  Tale  and  Cym- 
beline,  which  like  our  current  dramatized  novels  have 
lost  again  the  sense  of  a  partly  achieved  distinction 
and  relapsed  into  an  imperfectly  differentiated  rudi- 
ment. In  this  way  tragedy  and  romance  become  the 
typical  genres  of  classic  and  romantic  literature,  re- 
spectively, and  serve  by  their  varying  proportions  to 
indicate  the  prevalence  of  one  spirit  or  the  other. 

Such,  then,  is  what  may  be  called  the  controversial 
significance  of  the  term  romantic ;  for  in  some  or  all 
of  these  meanings  it  has  been  used  by  the  promoters 
of  certain  programmes,  to  whose  efforts,  particularly 
those  of  the  Germans,  is  due  much  of  the  confusion 
with  which  the  word  is  covered.  Such  programmes 
find  their  counterpart  in  special  classic  movements 


32  Romance  and  Tragedy 

like  that  of  Dryden  and  that  especially  against 
which  Lessing  raised  the  banner  of  revolt.  The 
point  is  that  they  are  all  aberrations  as  well  of  the 
romantic  as  of  the  classic  spirit.  In  spite  of  the 
similarity  of  the  name,  the  work  and  the  significance 
of  these  schools  are  quite  different.  And  since  in  the 
case  of  romanticism  in  particular  each  has  used  the 
term  irresponsibly  to  clothe  its  own  notions,  there 
has  resulted  a  bewildering  and  contradictory  set  of 
associations  connected  with  a  single  word. 

On  the  whole,  however,  it  has  always  been  the 
disposition,  if  not  the  immediate  purpose,  of  a  move- 
ment of  this  kind  to  break  with  the  great  tradition  of 
human  culture  and  to  reassert  the  merely  national 
and  popular  extraction.  Indeed,  with  A.  W.  Schle- 
gel  eigentumlich  and  romantic  are  synonyms.  And 
as  the  tradition  of  culture  originates  with  Greece 
and  as  the  purely  national  and  popular  genealogy 
has  its  roots  in  medievalism,  romanticism  as  an 
eccentric  movement  comes  sooner  or  later  to  appear 
as  the  opponent  of  humanism  and  a  restorer  of  bar- 
barism. Such  a  performance  is  strikingly  illustrated 
in  the  volte  face  of  Friederich  Schlegel,  who  began 
as  a  classicist  and  Grecian  and  ended  as  a  medieval- 
ist and  Roman  Catholic.  In  the  case  of  German 
romanticism  as  a  whole  this  attempt  to  revive  medi- 
evalism was  from  an  early  date  comparatively  self- 
conscious  and  perverse,  and  resulted  in  a  certain 
carelessness  of  the  permanent  acquirements  of  hu- 
man culture  and  a  discontent  with  the  real  basis  of 
human  sanity,  which  was  as  dangerous  as  it  was  un- 
Greek.  Though  in  France,  on  the  other  hand,  ro- 
manticism has  always  preserved  a  specious  air  of  rel- 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  33 

ative  sanity  and  moderation  —  it  is  necessary  only  to 
contrast  the  comparative  lucidity  of  Rousseau  with 
the  turgidity  of  the  Schlegels  to  see  the  difference 
—  I  doubt  whether  its  influence  has  been  any  less 
mischievous.  And  while  both  schools  may  be  con- 
sidered dead  as  such,  they  have  infected  the  litera- 
ture and  criticism  of  posterity  to  such  an  extent  that 
they  are  still  the  most  active  elements  of  our  intel- 
lectual life  to-day. 

Indeed,  it  is  just  this  insidiousness  which  makes 
the  danger  of  a  vigorous  romantic  propaganda  — 
the  encouragement  it  gives  to  the  barbaric  and  cha- 
otic elements  latent  in  every  civilization  —  the 
vagueness,  disorder,  and  turbidity  into  which  hu- 
manity is  liable  to  relapse  but  of  which  the  Greek 
was  the  most  obstinate  enemy  that  has  ever  existed. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  interruption  or  suspension 
of  his  culture  has  been  followed  by  a  romantic 
upheaval.  I  need  hardly  mention  medievalism  it- 
self; I  need  only  take  the  most  formidable  shock 
which  culture  has  suffered  since  the  Renaissance  — 
the  French  Revolution,  succeeded  as  it  was  by  the 
romantic  agitation  of  Europe.  Nor  does  it  require 
very  keen  eyes  to  see  that  we  ourselves  are  menaced 
by  three  apparitions  which  look  like  so  many  reve- 
nants  of  the  three  great  institutions  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  which  are  in  fact  nothing  but  the  three 
great  rivals  of  humanism  whatever  form  they  may 
happen  to  take  from  time  to  time.  In  the  first  place 
our  incipient  socialism  is  a  kind  of  transmogrified 
feudalism,  a  reincarnation  of  the  principle  that  the 
individual  exists  for  the  state  rather  than  the  state 
for  the  individual;  for  it  is  indifferent  after  all  what 


34  Romance  and  Tragedy 

kind  of  tyrant  we  serve,  king  or  demos,  whether  we 
build  great  communistic  cathedrals  or  railway  sta- 
tions. Our  technicality,  too,  or  specialism,  with  its 
distrust  of  the  free  intelligence  and  its  reduction 
of  every  interest,  even  history  and  literary  criticism, 
to  the  exercise  of  rigid  methodism,  is  only  another 
manifestation  of  the  spirit  which  once  expressed 
itself  in  scholasticism.  And  finally  our  religiosity 
as  exemplified  in  spiritism  of  one  kind  and  another, 
what  is  it  but  a  survival  of  the  mortal  superstition 
which  formerly  found  sanctuary  in  the  mediaeval 
church  with  its  myriad  hagiology  and  wonder-mon- 
gering?  If  there  were  to  be  to-day  a  serious  outbreak 
of  romantic  fervour,  it  is  these  elements  that  we 
should  find  vigorously  exploited  and  glorified  as  we 
do  find  them  feebly  and  ineffectually  celebrated  in 
our  present  feeble  and  ineffectual  literature. 

But  however  this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  these 
several  romantic  schools  agree  in  one  respect  —  in 
their  opposition  to  classicism  of  any  kind,  so  that  the 
name  becomes  still  further  generalized,  particularly 
under  the  criticism  of  the  Schlegels,  to  include  any 
work  of  literature  or  any  writer  who  is  opposed  to 
classicism,  just  as  the  romance  languages  are  con- 
trasted with  classic  Latin,  either  by  temperament  or 
on  principle.  Hence,  if  classic  be  supposed  to  re- 
sume the  spirit  illustrated  by  ancient  literature,  then 
romantic  will  embrace  all  that  literature  which  has 
grown  up  in  independence  or  in  ignorance  or  in 
defiance  or  in  neglect  of  that  spirit.  In  some  such 
fashion,  the  word  comes  finally  by  one  detour  and 
another  to  denote  the  antithesis  of  classic  and  to 
imply  another  disposition  of  spirit  altogether.    Such 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  35 

is  what  I  should  like  to  call  the  critical  significance 
of  the  word.  A  susceptibility  to  irregular  beauty, 
a  fondness  for  the  striking  and  the  unusual  even  at 
the  expense  of  regularity  and  order,  a  preference 
for  fascinating  detail  above  symmetry  and  propor- 
tion, a  predilection  for  the  coruscations  of  style  — 
for  the  glittering  word  and  phrase,  for  the  exotic 
and  exquisite  epithet,  for  everything  that  touches 
and  thrills  and  dazzles,  a  hunger  for  sensation,  even 
when  these  desires  lead  to  a  dissipation  of  the  atten- 
tion —  such  are  its  external  qualities  as  far  as  it  is 
profitable  to  analyse  them  at  present. 


11 

Finally,  then,  if  the  various  side-issues  and  in- 
cidental associations  raised  by  the  words  be 
disregarded,  classic  and  romantic  in  their  broadest 
and  most  fundamental  usage,  that  which  I  have  ven- 
tured to  call  the  critical,  are  seen  to  involve  the 
recognition  of  a  single  great  split  or  cleavage  affect- 
ing in  a  general  way  the  whole  body  of  literature 
and  dividing  it  into  two  factions  or  parties.  What- 
ever confusion,  ambiguity,  or  vagueness  may  be 
noticeable  in  their  special  or  narrower  attributions 
or  in  their  conflicting  suggestions  and  implications, 
they  still  testify  to  the  underlying  consciousness  of 
an  irreducible  opposition  of  poetic  temper  and  atti- 
tude into  which  all  differences  of  literary  conception 
and  manner  finally  resolve  and  which  is  illustrated 
most  clearly  at  its  extremes  in  a  comparison  of 
Greek  and  modern  literature  and  their  representa- 


36  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tive  authors  and  genres,  Sophocles  and  Shakespeare, 
tragedy  and  romance. 

With  the  bare  recognition  of  the  fact,  however, 
unanimity  ceases.  As  far  as  it  is  seen  to  imply  a 
principle  of  literary  classification  and  discrimination, 
the  authority  of  criticism  has  been  exerted,  on  the 
whole,  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century,  to  trouble 
and  obscure  the  clear  perception  of  its  real  charac- 
ter and  significance.  In  spite  of  the  bankruptcy 
of  the  school,  it  is  amazing  how  much  of  its  present 
capital  criticism  owes  to  the  German  romanticists 
without  even  seeming  to  be  aware  of  the  character 
of  the  debt  or  even  the  circumstance  of  the  obli- 
gation. In  the  words  of  a  German  man  of  letters, 
"  the  history  of  literature  can  sum  up  its  judgment 
of  the  Schlegel  brothers  by  saying  that  they  are 
the  parents  of  modern  criticism."  And  yet  what 
could  be  more  preposterous  to  an  independent  mind 
unswayed  by  a  traditional  superstition  than  the 
monstrous  inversion  by  which  the  literary  successor 
of  mediaevalism  has  been  made  to  appear  a  repre- 
sentative of  infinite  and  illimitable  ideals,  the  liter- 
ature of  the  idea  par  excellence,  in  contrast  with  the 
narrow  and  soulless  perfection  of  the  Greeks,  whom 
Renan  calmly  declares  to  have  been  utterly  destitute 
of  moral  seriousness?  And  since  many  of  the 
gravest  errors  of  the  movement  have  succeeded  in 
perpetuating  themselves  in  this  way,  piecemeal  and 
disguised,  as  they  never  could  have  done  naked  and 
integrally,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  consider  briefly 
what  new  elements  of  confusion  have  been  introduced 
into  the  case  by  the  critic  who  has  posed  it  system- 
atically and  a  parti  pris,  from  the  romantic  point  of 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  37 

view,  as  an  organic  law  of  artistic  development,  and 
whose  conclusions,  modified  and  transformed  to  suit 
a  later  spirit,  still  serve  as  the  basis  of  most  of  our 
critical  distinctions     I  mean  Hegel. 

Of  all  these  confusions  one  of  the  most  insidious, 
to  which  is  due  in  great  part  the  current  identifica- 
tion of  art  and  literature  —  or  more  exactly,  the 
arbitrary  discrimination  against  every  variety  and 
process  of  literature  which  fails  to  conform  to  the 
misleading  analogy  of  the  fine  arts,  together  with 
all  the  vexatious  corollaries  which  have  been  deduced 
therefrom  —  lies  at  the  very  roots  of  Hegel's  theory 
and  is  assumed  in  his  initial  definition.  According 
to  the  terms  of  that  definition  the  essential  character 
of  art  —  of  poetry  and  literature  no  less  than  of 
sculpture  and  painting  —  is  form.  Not  that  Hegel 
fails  to  recognize  that  no  piece  of  writing  offers  a 
sensible  presentment  in  the  same  precise  corporeal 
manner  as  a  statue  or  a  painting  —  but  his  notion 
is,  just  the  same,  that  the  author  is  bound  to  be  as 
concrete  and  plastic  in  the  realization  of  the  idea  as 
the  sculptor,  who  is  obliged  actually  to  materialize 
it  under  a  substantial  figure  with  definite  mem- 
bers and  features  set  in  a  particular  pose  and  ex- 
pression. In  itself  language  does  not  suffice  to 
substantiate  the  idea  artistically  any  more  than 
the  stone  of  the  sculptor ;  they  are  both  but  the  rude 
unfashioned  material,  the  stocks  and  stones  and 
blocks  out  of  which  is  constructed  the  tenement  that 
finally  lodges  the  idea.  It  is  only  as  they  are  used 
in  this  way  to  fix  the  idea  in  a  particular  shape  in 
which  the  idea  is  implicated  that  they  come  to  as- 
sume a  formal  artistic  significance.    In  the  one  case 


38  Romance  and  Tragedy 

the  form  is  evoked,  in  the  other  it  is  represented; 
but  it  is  equally  important  in  both  —  so  much  so 
that  in  literature  as  in  sculpture  the  absence  of 
intermediate  image  is  conclusive  evidence  of  want 
of  art.  By  definition,  therefore,  it  becomes  impos- 
sible for  literature  to  express  its  ideas  immediately 
in  words  —  it  is  no  such  simple  and  popular  con- 
fusion of  literary  form  with  style  into  which  Hegel 
falls;  on  the  contrary,  they  must  be  submitted  to 
a  kind  of  preliminary  projection  before  their  final 
reduction  to  language,  so  that  when  they  eventually 
reach  us  it  is  as  the  result  of  a  double  precipitation, 
the  one  verbal,  the  other  figurative.  Such  a  con- 
ception, it  is  interesting  to  notice  in  passing,  tallies 
with  Schlegel's  doctrine  of  poetry  as  a  zweite  Potenz 
—  imagination  to  the  second  power  —  the  effect  of 
language  being  squared,  as  it  were,  with  that  of  this 
secondary  exponent.  Any  writing  in  which  the  idea 
is  not  masked  in  this  particular  manner,  is  not  art; 
in  Hegelian  phraseology  it  is  only  a  case  of  the 
absolute  becoming  self-conscious. 

From  this  definition  of  the  essential  character  of 
art  it  results,  not  only  that  idea  and  image  are 
inseparable,  but  that  the  relation  between  them 
affords  a  means  for  its  discrimination  historically 
and  absolutely.  In  this  way  arise  three  stages  or 
classes.  In  the  earliest  and  lowest  of  all,  which  Hegel 
calls  not  very  happily  symbolic,  the  idea  is  over- 
powered by  the  matter  with  which  it  is  invested. 
The  peculiarity  consists,  not  so  much  in  the  excess 
of  bodily  substance,  as  in  the  grossness  of  its  organ- 
ization. Either  the  inspiration  is  too  dull  thor- 
oughly to  fuse  the  materials  through  which  it  seeks 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  39 

to  manifest  itself,  or  else  the  cast  is  so  rude  and 
clumsy  that  it  hardly  seems  to  be  informed  by  any 
idea  at  all.     Of  course,  in  literature  the  statement 
must  be  understood,  not  merely  of  the  verbal  com- 
position, but  of  the  sensuous  suggestion,  the  spectre 
of  reality  raised  by  the  artistic  use  of  language, 
as  in  a  laboured  and  impenetrable  analogy  like  the 
second  part  of  Faust.    Of  such  art  in  general  archi- 
tecture absolutely  and  Egyptian  architecture  rela- 
tively are  the  types;   for  every  art,  while  it  repre- 
sents, as  compared  with  others,  some  one  kind  or 
class  exclusively,  one  being  superior  to  another,  has 
yet  its  own  historical  evolution  and  does  also  in  its 
several  stages  illustrate  all  three,  so  conforming  to 
the  cyclic  or  corkscrew  scheme  affected  by  the  Ger- 
man romanticists.     In  this  hierarchy  of  art,  then, 
architecture  occupies  the  lowest  rank.    In  proportion 
to  its  bulk  its  significance  is  contemptible.     For  its 
size  and  outlay  it  expresses  less  and  expresses  that 
little  less  clearly  than  any  other  art  whatever,  while 
it  is  in  Egyptian  architecture  that  this  sense  of 
obstruction  and  obscurity  is  at  its  strongest.    Some- 
thing it  does  seem  to  suggest  —  some  presentiment 
of  dark  and  riddling  fatality,  but  suffocating  under 
an  incubus  of  meaningless  masonry.    In  such  a  case, 
indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  expression  in 
any  proper  meaning  of  the  word.    The  production  is 
not  really  expressive  at  all ;  it  acts  at  best  as  a  kind 
of  sign,  a  hieroglyph,  or  in  Hegel's  words,  a  symbol 
of  the  idea.     And  as  there  is  an  almost  ludicrous 
incongruity  between  the  sign  and  what  it  signifies, 
like  a  child's  drawing  of  reality,  the  effect  of  such 
an  art  is  inevitably  grotesque. 


40  Romance  and  Tragedy 

The  second  or  classical  order  or  degree  of  art 
arises  when  the  idea  and  the  form  are  in  some  sort 
of  equilibrium.  There  must  be  a  perfectly  clear 
conception  and  a  thoroughly  adequate  realization  so 
that  neither  the  physical  nor  the  spiritual  is  in 
excess  of  the  other.  On  the  one  hand,  such  art 
does  not  attempt  to  express  more  than  its  materials 
are  capable  of  rendering;  and  on  the  other  hand, 
these  materials  are  thoroughly  informed  and  ani- 
mated by  the  thought.  Sculpture  is  the  generic 
example,  with  its  substantial  but  shapely  propor- 
tions, its  limited  but  sufficient  import.  In  music, 
in  painting,  even  in  literature  there  is  felt  to  be  a 
want  of  firmness  and  solidity,  a  deficiency  of  body, 
in  the  media  of  expression.  But  in  sculpture,  and 
more  specifically  in  Greek  sculpture,  which  Hegel 
looks  upon  as  the  formal  perfection  at  once  of  the 
genre  and  of  art  as  a  whole,  the  idea  itself  is  just 
suited  to  corporeal  representation;  while  the  stone, 
though  saturated  with  the  idea,  is  still  capable  of 
holding  it  in  suspension  like  a  clear  transparent 
solution.  Evidently  art  like  this,  illustrated  rela- 
tively for  literature  by  Greek  tragedy,  which  critics 
still  persist  absurdly  enough  in  comparing  with  a 
frieze  or  a  bas-relief,  supposes  a  double  adaptation, 
not  only  of  image  to  idea,  but  also  of  idea  to  image. 
It  is  the  result  of  a  felicitous  compromise  between 
spirit  and  matter  —  an  inglorious  concession,  Hegel 
seems  to  think,  on  the  part  of  the  former.  Spirit- 
ualize the  conception  never  so  little  and  the  marble 
is  no  longer  able  to  do  it  justice.  The  harmony  of 
the  statue  is  impaired;  you  have  one  of  those  gnarled 
and  gristly  colossi  of  Michelangelo's,  part  seraph, 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  41 

part  prize-fighter,  agonizing  tempestuously  in  a  par- 
oxysm of  thwarted  aspiration.  Or  the  medium 
changes;  your  Apollo  becomes  a  cramped  ascetic 
languishing  ineffectually  on  a  strip  of  painted  can- 
vas. In  any  case,  the  integrity  of  the  association 
is  destroyed;  the  soul  has  hopelessly  outgrown 
its  physical  habitation ;  and  the  result  is  a  new  man- 
ner or  development  of  art,  the  romantic,  which 
Hegel  designates  as  distinctively  supreme  and 
modern. 

It  is  not  only  that  modern  life  is  fuller  and  more 
varied  than  was  ancient,  it  is  also  more  profound 
and  mysterious.  On  the  one  hand,  the  mere  spec- 
tacle and  outward  show  of  things,  which  constitutes 
the  subject  of  artistic  representation,  is  vaster  and 
more  bewildering  than  ever;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
problems  it  suggests,  which  supply  the  artistic  theme 
or  motif,  are  infinitely  more  baffling  and  inscrutable. 
We  are  no  longer  concerned  exclusively  with  the 
present  visible  world  of  the  ancients;  we  have  be- 
come rummagers  of  the  past,  antiquitatis  perscru- 
tatores,  and  peepers  upon  the  future.  To  our  prop- 
erly human  cares  and  anxieties  we  have  added  the 
world  to  come,  the  life  everlasting.  Small  wonder 
that  our  minds  have  grown  over-curious,  refined, 
and  subtle;  that  our  spirits  are  perturbed  and 
troubled.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  artist 
finds  himself  in  the  presence  of  an  accumulation 
of  experience,  emotion,  conjecture,  and  speculation 
so  prodigious  that  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  reduce 
it  to  any  definite  and  palpable  form  of  being.  Since 
he  can  apprehend  it  himself  only  darkly  and  fur- 
tively, as  it  were  by  indirect  vision,  so  he  can  com- 


42  Romance  and  Tragedy 

municate  it  only  by  way  of  suggestion  or  similitude. 
Hence  the  need  of  a  more  ethereal,  a  less  earthly 
medium,  like  painting  or  music,  or  a  more  tenuous 
genre,  like  lyric  poetry,  for  the  characteristic  mani- 
festations of  romantic  art. 

Such  is,  in  outline,  Hegel's  classification  and  phil- 
osphy  of  art;  or  more  narrowly  and  relevantly,  such 
is  his  contribution  to  the  definition  of  classic  and 
romantic.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see,  even  from  this 
hasty  sketch,  why  the  Aesthetics  should  have  made 
its  critical  fortune.  At  its  touch  matters  diverse  and 
disparate  seem  to  draw  together  and  coalesce 
and  take  on  meaning  as  though  by  enchant- 
ment; the  illusion  of  method  is  complete.  In  this 
wise  it  appears  to  account  for  the  sense  of  ease  and 
satisfaction  and  finality  in  Greek  art;  for  the  feeling 
of  lack,  the  longing  and  nostalgia  of  modern  art — 
and  to  do  so  in  the  most  agreeable  and  flattering 
manner  by  ascribing  the  perfection  of  the  former  to 
a  mere  nicety  of  technical  adaptation  while  condon- 
ing the  very  incapacity  of  the  latter  as  a  trifling 
physical  infirmity  significant  only  of  excessive  soul- 
fulness.  In  such  manner,  it  takes  advantage  of  an 
easy  confusion  between  evolution  and  development, 
and  assumes  the  latest  of  an  historical  series  for 
the  greatest,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  decadence  is 
as  much  a  term  of  the  vital  series  as  gestation.  How 
seriously  such  an  oversight  has  affected  Hegel's 
general  conclusions  I  am  not  prepared  to  say.  To 
criticize  his  theory  as  a  whole  would  not  only  lead 
me  too  far  afield,  it  would  be  beyond  my  powers. 
I  would  notice  only  in  the  application  to  literature 
one  or  two  errors  which  still  continue  for  all  their 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  43 

gravity  to  perpetuate  themselves  in  contemporary 
criticism. 

In  the  first  place,  Hegel  assumes  that  art  and  lit- 
erature have  to  do  with  the  same  sort  of  ideas.  He 
takes  it  for  granted  that  the  idea  of  a  picture,  a 
sonata,  and  a  book  are  all  of  a  single  denomination. 
But  not  only  is  such  an  assumption  absurd,  it  also 
introduces  into  literature  an  arbitrary  and  artificial 
distinction  by  confusing  its  manner  or  method  too 
with  that  of  art.  Not  only  is  it  evident  on  the  face 
of  it  that  neither  a  painting  nor  a  sonata  expresses 
the  same  order  of  ideas  as  a  book,  but  it  is  evident 
that  neither  expresses  its  proper  idea  in  the  same 
manner  —  if  indeed  a  painting  or  a  sonata  can  be 
said  to  express  an  idea  at  all.  To  believe  otherwise 
is  to  leave  one  kind  of  literature  out  of  account  al- 
together. On  such  a  supposition  only  that  kind  of 
writing  in  which  the  idea  is  disguised  in  concrete 
circumstance  in  such  a  way  as  to  lose  resemblance 
to  itself  and  become  fixed  in  the  mind  under  some 
particular  physical  aspect,  belongs  to  art.  All  writ- 
ing, on  the  contrary,  which  attempts  to  give  an 
account  of  its  ideas  without  the  assistance  of  such 
an  intermediary,  is  not  art;  it  is  the  resolution  of 
art.  To  speak  exactly,  then,  literature,  in  as  far  as 
it  is  art,  would  exist  in  the  first  instance,  not  for  the 
expression  of  ideas  at  all,  but  for  the  evocation  of 
images.  Such  a  hard  and  fast  distinction  drawn 
straight  through  the  body  of  literature  I  for  one  can 
not  admit.  I  can  not  group  the  drama,  the  epic, 
the  novel  on  one  side  of  such  an  imaginary  line; 
and  the  essay,  criticism,  history,  oratory,  it  may  be, 
on  the  other.     Without  further  reason  I  can  not 


44  Romance  and  Tragedy 

applaud  Thackeray  when  he  narrates  and  condemn 
him  when  he  reflects.  I  can  not  reserve  my  admira- 
tion solely  for  the  figure  and  my  contempt  for  the 
mot  propre.  It  would  be  better  to  withdraw  litera- 
ture from  under  the  wing  of  art  altogether  —  nor  is 
the  name  of  such  favourable  literary  augury  these 
days  that  any  serious-minded  critic  should  stickle 
for  it  —  for  literature  is  all  of  a  piece  and  indivisible 
by  virtue  of  the  exact  identity  of  its  materials  and 
its  intention. 

And  here  again,  though  it  amounts  to  much  the 
same  thing  in  the  end,  Hegel  fails  to  make  a  second 
vital  distinction.  The  materials  of  the  artist  —  the 
stone  of  the  sculptor,  the  colours  of  the  painter,  the 
notes  of  the  musician  —  are  not  naturally  suitable 
for  the  communication  of  ideas.  In  themselves  they 
are  not  properly  expressive.  They  serve  only  as  the 
groundwork  of  a  physical  contrivance  in  which  some 
sort  of  idea  is  at  best  implicit  and  which  serves  to 
suggest  the  idea  vaguely  and  uncertainly  —  or  rather, 
certain  of  its  circumstantial  characteristics.  It  is 
almost  as  though  the  idea  were  accidental,  or  at  least 
incidental,  in  art  —  so  much  so  that  many  modern 
artists,  notably  writers  so  styled  like  Gautier  and 
Maupassant,  have  denied  its  existence  altogether. 

But  the  function  of  language,  on  the  contrary, 
is  precisely  the  immediate  identification  and  defini- 
tion of  ideas.  Its  significance  resides  solely  in  ex- 
pression. Hence  the  curious  transfer  whereby  the 
term  has  come  to  mean  in  literature,  not  the  purport 
or  sense  of  a  certain  detail  of  execution  as  in  the 
fine  arts,  but  the  phrase  itself.  As  a  result,  litera- 
ture is  explicit  by  its  very  constitution.     To  be  in 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  45 

character  it  is  bound  to  be  intellectual.  When  it 
ceases  to  be  so,  it  becomes  inferior  or  worthless. 
Even  emotion  must  be  rationalized  if  it  is  to  agree 
with  the  structure  of  language.  In  short,  literature 
is  quite  another  thing  than  art,  not  only  in  method 
but  in  spirit.  It  does  not  live,  as  painting  and 
sculpture  do,  in  the  world  of  physical  forms  at  all, 
but  incorporeally  and  in  the  idea.  And  conse- 
quently, it  is  only  by  a  kind  of  license  that  it  can  be 
said  to  exist,  as  is  so  often  glibly  repeated,  for  the 
creation  of  the  beautiful.  Since  it  is  deprived  of 
anything  like  substantial  figure  or  material  contour, 
the  epithet  beautiful  has  no  exact  and  literal  mean- 
ing when  applied  to  it.  In  a  strict  use  of  terms  an 
idea  is  neither  beautiful  nor  ugly;  it  is  true  or  false. 
Or  if  it  is  beautiful  in  any  sense,  it  is  so  only  in  an 
applied  and  secondary  one  by  the  fineness  of  its 
truth.  While  as  for  poetry,  though  I  hope  I  appre- 
ciate its  sensuous  charms  as  much  as  any  man,  yet 
they  are  at  best  but  ancillary  to  the  thought  and 
even  in  themselves,  again,  are  beautiful,  not  in  a 
precise  definition,  but  merely  figuratively  and  by 
way  of  a  trope.  Such  is  the  mischief  that  results 
from  the  attempt  to  convert  an  innocent  manner  of 
speaking  into  a  hard  and  fast  formula  that  many 
have  unthinkingly  accepted  as  a  scientific  specifica- 
tion what  has  but  an  approximate  and  descriptive 
value,  to  the  detriment  of  the  whole  conception  and 
theory  of  poetry.  The  manner  of  literature,  like 
its  matter,  is  proper  to  itself;  it  has  attractions  of 
its  own  comparable  after  a  fashion  with  those  of 
music,  with  whose  general  movement  and  develop- 
ment it  corresponds  much  more  closely  than  with 


46  Romance  and  Tragedy- 

painting  or  sculpture,  but  by  no  means  identical  with 
them  even  in  that  limited  sense  which  makes  per- 
fection of  style  an  art  or  beauty,  as  well  as  an  end, 
in  itself. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  what  Hegel  has  done,  is  virtu- 
ally to  raise  a  prejudice  against  all  literature  which 
is  expressive  rather  than  suggestive  —  that  is  to  say, 
which  is  not  romantic.  Since  art  is  incapable  of 
conveying  an  idea  except  indirectly  and  by  means 
of  an  image,  it  is  a  natural  inference  that  a  perfectly 
clear  and  explicit  literature,  inasmuch  as  it  is  inartis- 
tic, is  in  some  degree  inferior.  And  this  impression 
is  deepened  by  a  recognition  of  the  following  corol- 
laries of  the  theory. 

Since  romantic  art  is  characterized  by  a  disparity 
between  conception  and  expression,  it  must  approach 
in  effect  the  first  and  most  primitive  manner  of  art, 
the  symbolic.  To  be  sure,  Hegel  implies  that  the 
one  is  over-spiritualized,  while  the  other  is  under- 
spiritualized.  But  his  classification  is  based  entirely 
upon  the  relation  of  form  to  idea;  and  both  cases 
are  marked  equally  by  a  disproportion  between  the 
two.  To  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  result  is  the 
same;  both  are  imperfect  art.  And  since  in  the  one 
case  as  in  the  other  the  realization  is  hardly  more 
than  a  sign  of  the  idea,  a  hierogylph  more  or  less 
arbitrary  and  inadequate,  a  mere  intimation  rather 
than  an  indication,  romantic  art  is  essentially  as 
symbolic  as  its  predecessor.  Such  a  consequence, 
indeed,  Schleiermacher  makes  no  bones  about  ac- 
cepting, though  with  a  slight  distinction  — -  it  is 
hardly  a  difference  —  in  defining  romantic  art  as 
allegorical  —  a  definition  which  Heine  adopts  and 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  47 

elaborates,  after  his  own  fashion,  in  his  Romantische 
Schule,  though  his  approval  has  by  no  means  the 
force  of  a  concession.  And  finally,  in  consequence 
of  the  discrepancy  between  the  idea  and  its  expres- 
sion there  arises  in  both  instances  the  same  sense  of 
almost  ludicrous  incongruity,  the  "  grotesque," 
which  Hegel  himself  remarked  in  "  symbolic  "  art 
and  which  Hugo  in  his  preface  to  Cromwell  recog- 
nized as  a  note  of  romantic  art  too  —  a  declaration 
which  Schlegel  had  in  a  manner  anticipated  with 
his  "  transcendental  irony."  Hence,  thanks  to  a 
question-begging  definition,  the  highest  manifesta- 
tion of  literature,  by  force  of  being  romantic, 
becomes  identified  with  a  kind  of  writing  originally 
symbolic  or  allegorical  in  character,  in  which  the 
idea  tends  to  shrink  farther  and  farther  behind  the 
material  incident  and  circumstance  with  which  it  is 
at  first  incorporated,  until  it  virtually  disappears 
altogether. 

From  these  considerations  it  would  seem  as  though 
Hegel  must  have  divined  the  character  of  romanti- 
cism very  imperfectly  —  at  least  in  its  relation  to 
literature.  In  particular,  he  has  failed  to  detect  the 
circumstance  —  perhaps  he  was  too  unfavourably 
situated  to  do  so  both  from  the  literary  and  the 
historical  point  of  view  —  that  this  romanticism 
which  he  has  celebrated  as  a  literature  of  boundless 
aspiration,  is  characterized  in  principle  by  an  almost 
slavish  subservience  to  sense.  And  yet  his  system 
logically  contains  the  whole  formula  of  I'art  pour 
Vart  and  of  "  naturalism."  The  insistence  upon  the 
value  of  form,  upon  the  sensuous  garniture  of  the 
idea,  is  sufficient  to  motive  the  former  movement; 


48  Romance  and  Tragedy 

while  the  indifference  to  clearness  of  expression  in 
comparison  with  the  importance  he  attaches  to  con- 
crete and  objective  realization  —  or  rather,  material- 
ization — seems  to  make  it  inevitable  that  what  was 
at  first  a  mere  medium  or  vehicle  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  thought,  should  gradually  lose  its  ulterior  sig- 
nificance, like  a  painted  window  with  the  light  gone 
out  of  it,  and  become  an  end  in  itself,  like  any  other 
opaque  and  impervious  surface.  So  it  is  pertinent 
to  observe  that  the  French  "  neo-romanticists  "  — 
Gautier,  Flaubert,  the  Goncourts  —  though  but  sec- 
taries and  representative  only  of  a  local  and  limited 
romanticism,  were  virtually  realists  —  however  they 
might  resent  the  imputation  —  at  the  same  time 
that  they  professed  to  be  "  artists  "  exclusively  and 
preoccupied  solely  with  "  form."  From  them  to 
the  "  naturalists  "  was  but  half  a  step,  as  is  indi- 
cated by  their  intimacy  and  sympathy  with  Zola, 
who  at  once  riotously  impressionistic  and  meticu- 
lously documentary  seems  to  unite  the  two  extremes 
of  the  movement  in  his  own  person.  In  short,  it  is 
towards  actuality  that  the  current  of  romanticism, 
in  its  main  waters  as  in  its  several  branches,  steadily 
sets.  In  principle,  the  romanticists  have  always 
found  their  affair,  not  exactly  in  representing  things 
as  they  are,  but  in  reproducing  the  sense  of  headi- 
ness  and  intoxication,  the  giddiness  and  Ransch  with 
which  the  excitable  spirit  of  the  poet  is  affected  in 
the  immediate  presence  of  life  —  rather  than  in 
fathoming  its  significance  and  rationalizing  its  ap- 
parent inconsequences.  Or  more  accurately,  they 
have  pretended  to  find  this  significance  in  the  sensa- 
tions proper  to  existence.    Hence  the  characteristic 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  49 

suggestiveness,  the  romantic  "  wonder,"  generated 
by  the  imitation  of  nature  and  explicable  by  the  ab- 
sence of  definite  intellectual  content,  as  a  shadowy 
corner  looks  the  more  mysterious  the  emptier  it  is. 
This  connection  between  romanticism  and  what 
we  are  accustomed  to  call  by  another  name  and  to 
think  of  erroneously  as  something  quite  different,  is 
expressed  by  the  Spanish  critic  and  scholar,  Menen- 
dez  y  Pelayo,  himself  a  romanticist  by  the  fatal  im- 
pulsion of  blood  and  nationality,  in  so  clear  and  final 
a  fashion  that  it  would  be  mere  pedantry  not  to 
quote  him  literatim: 

"  At  the  bottom  of  every  first-rate  work  of  art  there  is, 
in  our  opinion,  a  multitude  of  ideas  which  have  never 
perhaps  crossed  the  mind  of  the  poet  in  their  abstract 
and  general  expression,  but  which  actually  underlie  the 
concrete  and  palpable  forms  of  his  work,  as  they  underlie 
life  itself,  of  which  every  dramatic  work  worthy  of  the 
name  is  an  idealized  transcript.  And  the  richer  and  more 
complete  the  reality  reflected  in  the  work  of  art,  so  much 
the  greater  is  the  number  of  ideas  which,  thanks  to  it,  are 
revealed  and  made  manifest  to  the  eyes  of  the  readers." 

Precisely.  In  spite  of  the  deceptive  solidity  of  its 
pretensions  naturalism  so-called  is  only  a  variant  of 
romanticism  —  romanticism  on  all  fours,  if  you  like, 
but  still  romanticism.  Minor  differences  aside,  they 
concur  essentially  in  asserting  the  substantial  iden- 
tity of  literature  and  life.  To  the  one  as  to  the  other 
the  cardinal  virtue  of  art  is  to  lend  itself,  like  nature, 
to  an  unlimited  variety  of  interpretations  in  pre- 
senting a  surface  which  produces  virtually  the  same 
order  of  sensations  and  involves  the  same  order  of 


50  Romance  and  Tragedy 

ideas.  The  rest  is  merely  a  matter  of  relative  em- 
phasis. If  the  interpretation  seems  transcendental 
to  the  romanticist  and  scientific  to  the  naturalist,  it 
does  so  because  the  significance  is  indefinite,  as  a 
cloud  may  resemble  anything  as  long  as  its  figure 
remains  undefined. 

Candidly,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  Hegel  himself 
blinks  this  kinship  altogether,  whatever  derivative 
criticism  may  do;  he  divines  it,  to  be  sure,  but  very 
imperfectly.  "  In  the  representation  of  sensible 
forms,"  he  observes,  "  art  is  no  longer  afraid  to  take 
to  her  bosom  reality  with  all  its  imperfections. 
Beauty  has  ceased  to  be  indispensable;  the  ugly 
has  come  to  occupy  a  prominent  place  in  her  cre- 
ations." But  though  this  formula  seems,  after  the 
event,  to  provide  for  the  contingency,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  himself  would  have  been  prepared  at 
the  time  to  open  his  arms  to  such  a  portentous  ap- 
parition as  Zola ;  for  the  point  is,  he  fails  to  conceive 
of  romanticism  in  any  but  its  more  local  and  secular 
manifestations.  To  its  broader  aspect  as  a  charac- 
teristic product  of  modernism,  the  summation  of  a 
series  in  which  "  naturalism "  is  but  a  single 
term,  he  is  pretty  well  blinded.  If  anything,  he 
appears  to  regard  the  research  of  actuality  as  a 
symptom  of  romantic  decline  and  is  disposed  to  ter- 
minate the  movement,  whose  very  being  is  the  cult 
of  sensation,  at  the  moment  when  it  begins  to  come 
of  age  and  declare  itself  for  what  it  is. 

On  the  whole,  then,  temerarious  as  it  may  seem 
to  say  so,  the  greatest  objection  to  which  Hegel's 
conclusions  —  or  rather,  the  criticism  which  derives 
from  them  is  liable  from  the  point  of  view  of  liter- 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  51 

ature,  is  superficiality.  And  indeed,  in  treating  lit- 
erature substantially  as  an  affair  of  form  on  the 
same  footing  with  the  arts  he  himself  is  not  guiltless 
of  confounding  the  essential  with  the  incidental.  In 
such  arts  as  painting  and  sculpture  it  is  hardly  going 
too  far  to  say  that  it  is  the  form  which  solicits  the 
idea;  in  literature,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  idea 
which  appropriates  the  form.  In  art,  that  is  to  say, 
the  idea  is  accessory  —  and  even  then  it  is  mainly  an 
idea  about  form  and  material;  while  in  literature  it 
is  paramount  and  principal,  the  form  merely  receives 
and  contains  it.  Literature,  then,  as  far  as  it  is  true 
to  itself  and  its  own  character,  is  not  so  much  con- 
cerned to  image  life  as  to  commemorate  some  idea 
about  it  —  or  in  other  words  to  interpret  it.  Hence 
any  satisfactory  classification  of  the  subject  must 
proceed,  not  from  form  or  yet  from  the  relation 
between  form  and  idea,  but  solely  from  the  ideas 
which  alone  give  significance  to  its  interpretations. 
Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  interpretations  of 
classic  and  romantic  literature  seem  in  a  broad 
and  general  way  to  be  informed  by  two  distinct  ideas 
or  conceptions  of  life.  To  the  former  life  is  at 
bottom  an  illustration  of  moral  principles,  whose 
main  interest  is  human  and  rational.  To  the  latter, 
as  far  as  it  illustrates  anything  at  all,  its  interest  is 
"  natural  "  and  "  scientific  ";  it  is  an  illustration  of 
physical  law.  From  the  literary  point  of  view  life 
has  always  presented  itself  to  the  romanticist  as 
a  subject  of  powerful  if  impermanent  sensations,  a 
spectacle  of  inexhaustible  variety  and  brilliancy, 
capable  of  an  indefinite  amount  of  emotional  stimu- 
lation.   It  is  so  to  Zola  and  Tolstoi  as  truly  as  to 


52  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Victor  Hugo  and  Shakespeare.  As  far  as  their  re- 
ports yield  any  clear  and  consistent  idea  of  it,  they 
yield  only  such  an  idea  as  is  proper  to  actuality  itself 
—  an  idea  of  "  natural  "  or  mechanical  congruity. 
In  other  words,  while  the  classicist  found  his  motive 
of  literary  order  in  the  integrity  of  the  human  spirit, 
the  modern  seeks  for  his  in  the  uniformity  of  nature. 
To  Sophocles,  for  instance,  the  course  of  human 
events  would  seem  to  have  been  regulated  exclu- 
sively in  accordance  with  some  abstract  principle  of 
absolute  justice,  which  provided  automatically  for 
the  correction  or  suppression  of  the  offender  in  pro- 
portion to  the  gravity  and  danger  of  his  guilt.  An 
offence  once  committed,,  it  was  as  impossible  for  the 
offender  to  evade  the  moral  responsibility  by  plead- 
ing the  purity  of  his  intentions  as  to  escape  the 
physical  consequences;  indeed,  they  were  one  and 
the  same.  The  act  itself  was  sufficient  to  imperil  the 
moral  order,  as  a  civil  crime  is  now  felt  to  imperil 
our  social  order;  and  it  was  visited  accordingly  upon 
the  transgressor,  not  with  the  discretion  of  a  human 
arrest  but  with  the  same  relentlessness  and  impassi- 
bility as  what  we  speak  of  loosely  nowadays  as  an 
infringement  of  "  natural  "  law.  Indeed,  Sophocles' 
providence  or  fate  or  whatever  it  may  be  called,  ap- 
pears in  its  workings  singularly  like  our  "  nature  " 
save  that  it  is  thoroughly  and  inherently  moral  and 
relevant,  for  to  such  a  conception  there  was  nat- 
urally no  accident.  Character  as  such  had  no  more 
to  do  with  the  one  law  than  it  has  to  do  with  the 
other;  the  child  who  holds  his  hand  to  the  fire  is 
sacrificed  as  inevitably  as  Antigone,  no  matter  how 
amiable  his  disposition.     Man  was  all  of  a  piece; 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  53 

what  he  was  and  did,  was  as  much  a  part  of  him 
as  what  he  purposed.  Happiness  was,  therefore,  a 
moral  issue;  success,  an  evidence  as  a  result  of 
virtue. 

Naturally  such  a  position  is  no  longer  tenable. 
With  the  modern  notion  of  physical  causation  conse- 
quences have  become  in  themselves  morally  irrele- 
vant. Guilt  or  innocence  is  but  an  imputation. 
What  happens  is  merely  a  term  in  a  mechanical 
series  and  without  moral  significance  of  any  kind. 
Let  the  statue  of  Mitys  fall  upon  the  murderer's 
head  as  it  may,  it  will  never  quicken  our  conscience 
a  jot.  When  the  religious  man  like  Nicias  goes  to 
the  wall,  we  conclude  only  that  he  has  failed  to 
hit  things  off  somehow  and  we  call  him  superstitious 
for  his  pains;  his  piety  is  beside  the  mark.  Such 
a  philosophy,  however,  if  logically  enforced,  as  it 
is  in  science,  is  felt  to  be  fantastically  superficial; 
it  fails  to  satisfy  the  heart,  it  is  dramatically  im- 
possible. In  spite  of  such  prepossessing  names  as 
"  utilitarianism  "  and  "  Nietzscheism,"  the  effort  to 
dissolve  humanity  in  nature  has  had  but  a  partial 
success  as  yet;  and  where  it  has  most  succeeded, 
literature  has  most  suffered.  On  the  whole,  the  seri- 
ous drama  has  attempted  to  save  the  moral  issue  by 
a  kind  of  compromise  in  transferring  human  respon- 
sibility from  act  to  intention.  Hence  the  tragedy 
of  character.  But  even  in  this  view  happiness  is 
nothing  more  than  a  clever  adjustment  to  "  environ- 
ment "  and  illustrates  nothing  one  way  or  another 
—  except  Darwinism.  The  unscrupulous  may  suc- 
ceed; there  is  no  power  interested  in  frustrating 
them  —  indeed,  they  are  more  likely  to  do  so  than 


54  Romance  and  Tragedy 

not,  they  are  the  least  handicapped.  And  so,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  do  in  Shakespeare's  historical 
plays,  where  he  was  unable  to  tamper  with  his 
materials.  On  the  other  hand,  the  scrupulous  may 
go  to  the  ground,  as  in  a  drama  of  the  general 
type  of  Hamlet.  From  this  dilemma,  again,  tragedy 
tries  to  extricate  itself  with  greater  and  greater  diffi- 
culty. We  still  have  moral  prejudices  and  we  oc- 
casionally withdraw  our  situation  from  the  domain 
of  nature  to  that  of  conscience.  We  like  to  show 
occasionally  that  the  villainous  arithmetician  may 
bungle  his  calculations  like  Iago.  Or  after  all,  like 
Claudius,  he  may  not  be  so  prosperous  as  he  looks. 
But  then,  unless  we  do  violence  to  our  logic  of 
nature  —  as  Shakespeare  is  not  always  averse  to 
doing  when  he  can  and  as  there  is  always  great 
temptation  to  do  —  such  a  man's  unhappiness 
must  be  subjective  and  so  more  or  less  unfit  for 
dramatic  exhibition.  And  so  from  all  these  com- 
promises and  concessions  there  results  a  kind  of 
fundamental  inconsistency  and  insincerity  about  our 
serious  romantic  drama  —  it  is  not  tragedy  at  all, 
but  a  nondescript;  for  tragedy  is  impossible  without 
an  unflinching  moral  vision.  The  sole  relief  is  to 
save  our  sympathy  for  the  virtuous  but  unhandy 
hero  and  his  cause  and  to  cover  his  adversary  with 
contumely.  The  resolution  is  purely  human,  it  is 
a  kind  of  argumentum  ad  hominem;  there  is  no 
vestige  of  divinity  about  it. 

But  such  speculations  are  premature.  They  only 
illustrate  in  the  persistent  genre  of  drama  the  two 
different  conceptions  of  life  and  its  significance 
which   determine   romantic   and  classic   literature. 


The  Terms  Classic  and  Romantic  55 

That  this  difference  of  idea  may  have  occasional 
differences  of  form  in  the  only  sense  in  which  the 
word  has  any  meaning  for  literature  —  that  is,  of 
style  and  structure  —  I  am  far  from  denying.  But 
the  latter  sort  of  difference  is  merely  a  secondary 
characteristic. 

The  principal  and  primary  matter  is  the  difference 
of  view.  And  in  the  determination  of  this  essential 
difference  modern  criticism,  riddled  as  it  is  with  the 
misconceptions  and  misrepresentations  of  romanti- 
cism, gives  us  little  assistance.  And  yet  with  this 
uncertainty  fastened  upon  it,  without  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  character  of  the  fundamental  inter- 
pretations which  literature  undertakes,  how  shall 
criticism  hope  to  arrive  at  any  final  conclusion  on 
any  subject?  Indeed,  this  is  the  reason  that  all  our 
criticism  is  so  uncertain,  groping,  and  tentative  the 
moment  it  abandons  pure  description  and  under- 
takes to  deal  with  anything  larger  than  an  isolated 
phenomenon,  a  mere  biographical  or  philological  de- 
tail; it  lacks  the  elementary  generalization,  the  basis 
of  classification. 

For  these  reasons  I  can  not  help  thinking  that  one 
of  the  first  requisites  for  a  sound  criticism  in  the 
future  is  a  general  rectification  of  values  founded 
upon  an  examination  of  the  ideas  at  the  bottom  of 
Greek  and  modern  literature  —  not  a  squabble  over 
classicism  and  romanticism  in  the  narrower  and 
sectarian  sense  of  the  words,  but  a  comparison  of 
the  two  dispositions  of  spirit  illustrated  by  the  two 
orders  of  literature  as  a  whole.  In  a  single  breath, 
what  we  need  is  a  fundamental  literary  criticism 
which  shall   differ   from  philology  and  history  in 


56  Romance  and  Tragedy 

being  a  criticism  of  principles  and  from  aesthetics 
in  devoting  itself  to  the  peculiarities  of  literature 
as  distinct  from  the  fine  arts  —  that  is  to  say,  as  a 
medium  of  ideas.  And  in  this  task  it  seems  as 
though  comparative  literature  might  find  its  most 
useful  occupation  at  the  present  time.  I  can  not 
believe  that  it  is  by  a  confrontation  of  verbal  or 
conceptual  borrowings,  or  by  a  juxtaposition  of  hap- 
hazard parallelisms,  much  less  by  a  nosing  of  recon- 
dite analogies  through  a  maze  of  barren  dialects  in 
which  a  flower  of  poetry  never  bloomed,  that  com- 
parative literature  is  going  to  quicken  our  gratitude 
or  justify  its  high  pretensions.  But  rather,  it  is  by 
the  definition  of  certain  universal  ideas  and  prin- 
ciples which  are  appreciable  only  by  contrast,  much 
as  our  sensation  is  itself  a  matter  of  variety.  And 
not  only  is  the  task  I  have  ventured  to  propose  of 
such  a  sort  —  not  only  is  it  in  itself  a  worthy  and 
desirable  work  —  but  it  is  also  one  well  worthy  of 
the  breadth,  the  learning,  and  the  disinterestedness 
to  which  comparative  literature  lays  claim. 

Such  a  task  is  hardly  to  be  accomplished  or  even 
undertaken  by  a  single  writer  or  all  at  once.  But 
it  may  be  performed  little  by  little  and  by  many 
hands.  Every  critic  who  attempts,  however  small 
his  scope,  to  exhibit  the  vital  connection  between 
literature  and  life,  who  eschews  mere  formal  and 
verbal  eristic  to  elicit  his  author's  ideas,  who  keeps 
a  sure  hold  on  reality  and  illustrates  his  subjects  by 
his  experience,  who  judges  not  by  caprice  or  con- 
vention but  by  principle  —  such  a  critic  is  contri- 
buting his  share  to  the  making  of  such  a  criticism. 


GERMAN   ROMANTICISM 

Welch  ein  Unfug!     Welch  Geschrei! 

FAUST 

THE  German  romantic  movement  was  the  result 
of  defective  culture,  of  bodily  and  mental  de- 
rangement, of  spiritual  and  nervous  disorder.  It 
is  a  work  of  degeneration,  deformation,  and  disease. 
And  it  bears  on  its  front  the  stigmata  of  its  in- 
firmities—  absurdity,  folly,  inanity,  and  confusion. 
There  is  Hardenberg,  the  pattern  of  the  school, 
who  falls  in  love  with  a  chit  of  thirteen  and  at  her 
death  a  year  or  so  later  dedicates  himself  to  the 
grave,  an  unblemished  sacrifice  of  love,  unblighted 
by  sickness,  violence,  or  sorrow,  the  cheerful  victim 
of  his  own  regret.  In  the  meanwhile  he  begins  a 
new  era  and  dates  his  note-books  from  the  epoch 
of  her  decease.  By  the  end  of  the  following  twelve- 
month, however,  he  has  sufficiently  vaporized  his 
emotions  in  various  scribblings  to  choose  another 
bride  and  is  reduced  to  "  faking  "  metaphysical  non- 
sense to  pass  off  an  infidelity  which  would  never 
have  been  cast  up  against  him  but  for  his  extrav- 
agant protestations.  Sophie  and  Julie  are  two,  such 
is  his  magic  arithmetic,  only  in  the  land  of  phenom- 
ena; in  the  land  of  fulfillment,  where  all  differences 
are  reconciled,  they  are  but  one.  There  again  is 
Friedrich  Schlegel,  grubber  of  ideas  for  the  whole 
party,  proclaiming  in  sublime  paradox  that  formless- 

57 


58  Romance  and  Tragedy 

ness  is  the  highest  form  of  art;  the  fragment,  the 
consummate  genre  of  literature;  the  dissolution  of 
poetic  illusion,  the  signet  of  poetic  genius.  Prophet 
of  transcendental  buffoonery  and  irony,  of  Freiheit 
and  Willkur,  he  has  ended  his  days  in  the  service 
of  the  two  narrowest  Autoritdtsprincipien  that  ever 
were,  Austrian  imperialism  and  Roman  Catholicism. 
There  is  Tieck  too,  after  an  education  little  better 
than  an  emotional  and  intellectual  debauch,  writing 
dramas  backwards  and  demonstrating  the  identity 
of  poetry  and  music  by  "  transposing  "  notes  into 
words : 

"  Die  Far  be  klingt,  die  Form  ertont." 

There  is  Schleiermacher,  the  priest,  the  Geist- 
licher  preaching  free  love  and  the  "  emancipation 
of  woman,"  making  himself,  in  Walzel's  words,  "  the 
forerunner  of  the  modern  French  novel,"  the  gospel 
of  lubricity  and  license.  And  finally  there  are  poor 
Holderlin  and  Wackenroder,  the  one  crack-brained 
at  thirty  or  thereabouts,  the  other  fretted  out  at 
twenty-five  between  his  duty  and  his  inclinations. 
Nor  are  their  friends  and  lovers  much  better.  On 
the  whole  they  are  pretty  much  of  a  piece  with  Doro- 
thea Veit,  the  daughter  of  Moses  Mendelssohn,  who 
deserts  her  husband  and  two  children  to  run  after 
Friedrich  Schlegel,  and  Caroline  Michaelis  —  Dame 
Lucifer,  Schiller  called  her  —  Bohmer's  widow,  Gal- 
lic agitator,  inmate  of  a  German  prison,  mother  of 
a  nameless  child,  who  accepts  Friedrich's  brother 
Wilhelm,  as  a  pis  aller  and  under  his  nose  carries 
on  a  liaison  with  Schelling,  for  whom  she  finally 
leaves  her  husand. 


German  Romanticism  59 


But  enough  of  personalities.  The  thoroughly  sig- 
nificant thing  about  German  romanticism  as  a  lit- 
terary  phenomenon  is  its  sterility.  It  has  almost 
no  works,  literally  next  to  nothing  to  show  for  itself 
in  the  way  of  literature.  A  little  vapid  verse,  two 
or  three  staggering  dramas,  a  few  rickety  Mdrchen 
and  twaddling  rhapsodies,  several  dilapidated  novels, 
or  rather  romances,  to  sustain  the  claims  of  a  school 
that  pretended  to  derive  from  the  Roman  —  this  is 
just  about  all  its  literary  capital,  the  greater  part 
of  it  unreadable,  inexpressibly  childish,  silly,  and 
dull.  In  itself  it  were  all  equally  harmless,  though 
for  different  reasons,  because  all  equally  ineffectual. 
If  there  is  something  almost  disarming  about  the 
naivete  which  could  seriously  busy  itself  with  a  per- 
formance like  Heinrich  von  Ojterdingen,  the  pre- 
posterous crudity  and  flatulence  of  a  Sternbald  is  no 
less  disabling.  Both  were  alike  negligible,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  impudence  of  their  exploiters.  Indeed, 
as  a  general  thing  the  illustrators  of  the  movement 
were  not  in  the  first  instance  responsible;  they  were 
merely  "  let  in  "  for  it.  In  its  inception  the  school 
consisted  virtually  of  a  pair  of  doctrinaires  and 
theorists  —  Wilhelm  Schlegel,  dilettante  and  ec- 
lectic, and  his  brother,  Friedrich,  pedant  and  mau- 
vais  tetc  —  who  attempted  to  create  a  criticism  a 
priori  and  who,  impotent  to  illustrate  it  themselves, 
were  forced  to  have  recourse  to  what  they  were  able 
to  pick  up  elsewhere.  After  a  fashion  it  resembled 
those  institutions  which  are  universities  in  name  but 


60  Romance  and  Tragedy 

in  fact  are  nothing  but  examining  boards.  It  criti- 
cized the  productions  of  others,  and  if  pleased  there- 
with, graduated  them  romantic.  It  lived  on  foreign 
conquest  and  annexation,  and  made  capital  of  the 
fruit  of  other  men's  labours.  In  such  wise  it  cannily 
took  possession  of  Tieck,  who  was  at  bottom  an 
independent  man  of  letters,  a  free  lance,  even  a 
journalist  in  the  sense  that  with  him  literature  was 
before  all  a  business  and  a  livelihood.  In  a  word 
Tieck  was  too  much  of  a  Dryden  to  be  a  romanticist 
by  vocation.  The  significant  thing  about  him  is  that 
he  outgrew  his  romanticism,  which  in  his  case  was 
only  a  malady  of  adolescence,  a  distemper  or  kind 
of  green  sickness.  It  was  merely  one  of  his  manners 
and  no  more  permanent  or  final  than  that  which 
marked  his  period  of  "  enlightenment." 

In  particular,  however,  romanticism  found  its 
most  advantageous  affair  in  the  inadvertencies  and 
indiscretions  of  acknowledged  genius.  So  it  laid 
hands  upon  certain  work  of  Schiller's  and  Goethe's, 
and  insisted  upon  making  them  romantic  leaders  in 
spite  of  their  protests.  To  be  sure,  Goethe  was  in 
some  sense  romantic  and  not  wholly  irresponsible 
for  many  of  the  positions  his  name  was  used  to 
cover.  But  the  capital  fact  of  his  life,  after  all,  was 
his  conversion  from  romanticism,  even  after  his  own 
kind,  which  was  at  worst  of  quite  another  complex- 
ion than  that  of  the  School's.  What  importance  he 
himself  attached  to  this  change  of  colours,  is  shown 
by  the  circumstance  that  he  is  constantly  preoccu- 
pied with  it  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life  —  end- 
lessly affirming,  explaining,  justifying,  and  comment- 
ing it.  Unfortunately,  however,  for  a  just  perception 


German  Romanticism  61 

of  the  facts  it  is  the  romantic  Goethe  with  whom  we 
are  better  acquainted,  partly  on  account  of  the 
currency  which  he  himself  has  given  his  earlier  years 
in  Dichtung  und  Wahrheit  and  partly  on  account  of 
the  assiduity  with  which  the  romanticists  have  con- 
tinued painting  his  portrait  after  their  own  likeness. 
But  for  all  the  seduction  of  his  youth  and  the  apothe- 
osis it  has  received,  the  significance  of  his  manhood, 
of  his  intellectual  being,  should  not  be  overlooked 
—  and  that  was  irreconcilably  at  odds  with  the  ro- 
mantic error. 

And  yet  it  must  be  acknowleded  in  the  same 
breath  that  whatever  his  principles,  Goethe  was  al- 
ways inclined  to  coquette  with  romanticism  more 
than  was  good  for  him.  Personally  I  fail  to  see 
much  choice,  as  literature,  between  the  second  part 
of  Faust  and  Tieck's  Prinz  Zerbino.  As  a  system 
of  philosophy,  metaphysics,  or  Symbolik  the  former 
may  be  vastly  superior;  that  is  a  question  to  be  de- 
cided by  those  who  understand  it.  But  at  all  events 
it  was  by  no  means  difficult  for  the  romanticists  to 
find  in  him  excuse  or  precedent  for  some  of  their 
worst  follies.  So  it  was  in  particular  with  the  gi- 
gantic egotism  which  underlay  their  pretensions  to 
artistic  vocation.  There  is  something  almost  bete 
in  the  complacency  and  open-mouthed  stupefaction 
with  which  Goethe  —  and  even  Schiller,  who  had 
less  reason  for  it  —  contemplate  their  own  produc- 
tions, as  though  they  were  some  great  and  inevitable 
work  of  nature,  to  say  nothing  of  the  exaggerated 
respect  which  they  have  for  their  own  occupation. 
And  while  perhaps  the  frequent  fatuity  of  the  roman- 
ticists was  less  innocent  as  it  was  less  excusable, 


62  Romance  and  Tragedy 

they  might  have  pointed  to  this  common  trait  among 
others  as  a  plausible  evidence  of  kinship. 

Nevertheless,  the  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  the 
careers  of  Goethe  and  Tieck  as  a  whole  is  perfectly 
obvious.  The  notions  of  the  Romantic  School  are, 
in  the  most  favourable  interpretation,  those  of  youth 
and  immaturity;  it  is  impossible  for  any  sane  man 
to  grow  old,  not  to  say  ripe,  in  them.  Their  very 
begetters  abandoned  them  in  later  life  —  or  rather, 
the  other  way  about,  their  ideas  abandoned  them, 
and  they  went  out  one  after  another  like  draughty 
candles.  Even  the  two  Schlegels  became,  the  one  a 
functionary  of  authority  and  tradition,  the  other  a 
literary  cicisbeo  or  factotum.  In  short,  there  is 
about  romanticism  nothing  permanent  or  achieved. 
It  is  not  a  state  of  attainment  in  which  it  is  possible 
to  rest  content,  as  Goethe  rested  in  his  classicism.  It 
is  not  even  a  stage  of  development;  it  is  a  mood,  an 
aberration  of  spirit,  to  which  youth,  together  with 
periods  of  dissolution  and  transition,  is  particularly 
liable. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the  existence  of  German 
romanticism  was  parasitic;  it  lacked  the  constitution 
to  live  independently  and  relied  upon  other  sources 
for  its  sustenance  and  support.  Hence  in  part  its 
mischievousness.  It  deranged  the  intellectual  econ- 
omy and  impaired  the  moral  health  of  the  whole 
age  and  its  posterity  by  disturbing  the  natural  cir- 
culation of  ideas  and  stimulating  a  set  of  abnormal 
and  artificial  appetites  and  reactions.  The  ideas 
which  it  appropriated,  the  work  which  it  approved, 
were  seldom  their  authors'  best  or  sanest.  To  be 
sure,  there  was  at  the  time  little  enough  that  was 


German  Romanticism  63 

excellent  to  choose  from;  still  of  what  there  was, 
it  failed  to  take  the  best.  Or  if  by  any  chance  it 
did,  the  reasons  for  its  choice,  as  well  as  the  use  it 
made  of  its  selections,  were  anything  but  judicious. 
Naturally,  its  acquisitions  were  exceptional  and  acci- 
dental when  considered  with  reference  to  the  entire 
work  of  the  author  from  whom  they  were  extracted; 
and  since  they  formed  no  ensemble  of  themselves, 
they  were  frequently  inconsistent  and  incongruous 
one  with  another.  In  this  way  arose  endless  difficul- 
ties —  multiplied  explanations,  reconciliations,  com- 
promises, adjustments,  extenuations  —  and  in  gen- 
eral an  impression  of  confusion  and  inconsequence 
about  the  whole  ingeniously  tessellated  fabric.  This 
is  the  explanation  too  of  that  inextricable  mixture  of 
truth  and  falsehood  in  the  romantic  doctrine  by 
which  so  much  that  is  erroneous  has  succeeded  in 
passing  current  in  the  past  until  our  criticism  and 
appreciation  are  honeycombed  with  it  and  by  which 
the  wariest  critic  is  liable  to  be  disconcerted  still. 

Upon  this  confusion  it  was  inevitable  that  the 
intellectual  sterility  peculiar  to  the  movement  should 
react  disastrously.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  two 
characters  are  hardly  separable,  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  say  whether  the  romantic  confusion  is 
a  result  of  literary  impotence  or  vice  versa.  It  is 
merely  a  case  of  action  and  reaction.  Inasmuch  as 
its  promoters  had  few  ideas  of  their  own,  they  were 
thriftily  disposed  to  make  these  ideas  go  as  far  as 
possible  by  applying  them'  to  all  sorts  of  subjects 
indiscriminately.  So  Friedrich  Schlegel  transferred 
to  current  criticism  the  principles  he  had  originally 
derived  from  the  study  of  Greek.    He  judges  Wil- 


64  Romance  and  Tragedy 

helm  Meister  by  the  same  criteria  as  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey  and  arrives,  as  might  be  expected,  at 
an  insanely  jumbled  estimate  of  both.  Nor  did  the 
school,  under  his  able  tuition  and  that  of  his  brother, 
proceed  otherwise  with  such  general  subjects  as 
art,  nature,  religion,  and  philosophy,  as  though  to 
justify  Schleiermacher's  saying,  "  Es  gehbrt  zu  dem 
sick  noch  immer  weiter  bildenden  Gegensatz  der 
neuen  Zeit  gegen  die  alte,  dass  nirgend  mehr  einer 
eines  ist,  sondern  jeder  dies."  So  little  sense  had 
they  of  the  just  measure  that  they  seldom  touched 
an  idea  without  spraining  it.  They  broke  up  wholes 
into  parts  and  erected  parts  into  wholes.  They 
isolated  single  factors  and  treated  them  as  complete 
in  themselves.  They  mistook  means  for  ends  and 
ends  for  means.  They  added  and  subtracted  unlike 
denominations  to  make  a  desired  product.  They 
slurred  distinctions  and  ignored  resemblances.  They 
invented  such  hybrids  as  the  "  religion  of  art "  and 
the  "  religion  of  nature,"  terms  which  they  took  lit- 
erally, not  metaphorically.  "  Any  man  is  a  priest," 
says  Schleiermacher,  "  who  under  a  form  original 
and  complete  has  developed  in  himself,  to  the  point 
of  virtuosity,  the  faculty  of  feeling  in  any  mode  of 
representation."  With  Schelling  they  turned  po- 
etry into  philosophy  and  with  Novalis  they  turned 
religion  into  poetry.  For  the  latter,  indeed,  the 
gospels  derive  their  authority  chiefly  from  the  fact 
that  they  have  to  do  with  the  dissolution  of  a  spell 
(Verzauberung)  and  hence  resemble  a  Marchen  or 
fairy  tale,  the  favourite  romantic  genre.  In  a  word, 
confusion  —  chaos  they  themselves  define  as  the  ro- 
mantic element  —  is,  with  futility,  the  constant  char- 


German  Romanticism  65 

acter  of  the  movement,  and  our  present  universal 
deformation  of  ideas  is  but  an  heirloom  of  the  School. 
Capital,  in  particular,  for  its  critical  temper  is 
the  crass  eclecticism  with  which  it  sought  to  run 
the  arts  together,  into  a  kind  of  indiscriminate  med- 
ley, without  regard  for  their  natural  differences  of 
aim,  effect,  material,  and  method.  With  the  phe- 
nomenon itself  we  are  only  too  well  acquainted  now- 
adays, when  our  critics  are  still  discoursing  as  though 
the  Laokoon  had  never  been  written,  while  our  poets 
are  industriously  creating  pastels  in  prose  and  sym- 
phonies in  verse,  to  say  nothing  of  the  painter's 
marvels  in  tone  and  the  musician's  miracles  of  colour. 
But  appalling  as  it  is  to  observe  how  quickly  a  dis- 
tinction once  achieved  may  be  totally  obliterated, 
it  is  not  we  in  this  case  who  are  the  first  offenders. 
Friedrich  Schlegel,  Novalis,  Tieck,  and  "  many  more 
whose  names  on  earth  are  dark  "  —  they  are  all 
with  one  accord  for  the  promiscuity  of  art.  "  Hence 
it  is  desirable  to  bring  the  arts  together  again  and 
to  seek  transitions  from  one  to  the  others.  In  this 
wise  statues  may  rouse  into  paintings,  paintings 
become  poems,  poems  music,  and  who  knows  what 
noble  church  music  will  mount  once  more  like  a 
temple  into  the  air!  "  So  the  elder  Schlegel;  and 
to  much  the  same  effect  Novalis:  "In  general  it 
is  impossible  for  the  poets  to  learn  enough  from  the 
musicians  and  painters.  .  .  .  They  should  be  more 
poetic  and  as  who  should  say  more  musical  and 
picturesque."  While  the  younger  Schlegel  in  his 
own  very  best  manner  raises  distraction  to  its  high- 
est power:  "  Romantic  poetry  is  a  progressive  uni- 
versal poetry.    Its  mission  is  not  merely  to  unite  all 


66  Romance  and  Tragedy 

the  separate  varieties  of  poetry  and  to  reconcile 
poetry  with  philosophy  and  rhetoric;  it  will  and 
must  also  now  blend,  now  fuse  poetry  and  prose, 
genius  and  criticism,  art-poetry  and  nature-poetry." 
As  for  Tieck,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  he  is  by  no 
means  so  universal  a  spirit;  he  is  merely  an  advo- 
cate for  the  poetry  of  music  and  the  music  of  poetry: 
"  What!  is  it  not  permissible  to  think  in  tones  and 
to  make  music  in  words  and  thoughts?  " 

In  all  these  quotations,  it  should  be  noticed,  the 
word  poetry  has  come  to  have  a  meaning  so  vague, 
shifty,  and  ambiguous  as  to  be  incapable  of  support- 
ing any  conclusion  —  or  what  amounts  to  the  same 
thing,  as  to  be  capable  of  supporting  any  conclusion 
whatever,  an  advantage  which  Wilhelm  Schlegel  fi- 
nally pushes  home  in  his  Berlin  lectures  on  belles 
lettres  and  art  by  substituting  the  term  "  poetics  " 
for  the  "  theory  of  art  "  (Kunstlehre)  in  general. 

All  this  has  a  very  familiar  ring.  It  is  quite  in 
our  own  way  —  so  much  so  as  to  seem  rather  trite 
and  hardly  worth  consideration  save  for  the  sake 
of  its  genealogy.  But  then,  which  of  the  roman- 
ticists' errors  is  likely  to  appear  novel  in  the  eyes 
of  their  heirs?  At  the  same  time,  I  may  be  pardoned 
in  the  interests  of  completeness  for  calling  attention 
to  still  another  obsession  and  that  the  most  striking 
and  significant  of  all.  I  mean  that  which  at  bottom 
a  disciple  of  Freud's  might  be  disposed  to  think 
responsible  for  the  whole  romantic  neurosis.  To  be 
sure,  there  is  ever  a  disposition  at  periods  of  ecstatic 
agitation  to  confound  love  erotic  with  love  chari- 
table. But  in  this  instance  the  symptom  is  partic- 
ularly important  because  what  seems  to  result  from 


German  Romanticism  67 

a  study  of  the  romantic  doctrine  of  passion,  is  the 
suspicion  that  a  great  part  of  the  disorder  of  the 
school  was  the  result  of  nothing  more  or  less  than 
sexual  unrest.  The  manner  in  which  this  sensual 
ground  of  uneasiness  appears  and  reappears  at  fre- 
quent intervals,  like  a  shoal  under  ruffled  water,  is 
startling.  How  much  of  Novalis'  piety  is  due  to 
the  loss  of  his  Sophie  it  is  hard  to  say;  but  its  kind  or 
quality  is  unmistakable  —  it  bears  the  marks  of  a 
thwarted  or  perverted  desire,  a  momentary  vacancy 
of  the  senses.  In  his  own  words,  "  the  exaltation  of 
the  beloved  object  to  a  divinity  is  applied  religion." 
And  equally  characteristic  of  the  confusion  between 
Eros  and  Charity  is  the  jotting  in  his  note-book, 
"  Christus  und  Sophie."  But  it  is  Schleiermacher  in 
his  Reden  ilber  die  Religion  who  puts  the  official 
and  theological  seal  upon  this  notion  that  "  die  Los- 
ung  aller  Ratsel  im  Geheimnis  der  Liebe  liege  ": — 

"  For  him  who  stands  alone  the  all  exists  in  vain,  for 
in  order  to  take  up  into  himself  the  life  of  the  Universal 
Spirit  (Weltgeist)  and  to  have  religion,  man  must  first 
have  discovered  mankind,  and  that  he  finds  only  in 
love  and  through  love.  For  this  reason  are  the  two 
things  so  intimately  joined ;  longing  for  love,  ever  fulfilled 
and  ever  renewed,  comes  at  once  to  constitute  for  him 
religion.  .  .  .  Therefore  religion  withdraws  into  the  still 
more  confidential  intercourse  of  friendship  and  the  dia- 
logue of  love,  wherein  face  and  figure  are  plainer  than 
words  and  even  a  sacred  silence  is  intelligible." 

With  these  tenets  it  is  hardly  astonishing  that 
the  promoters  of  the  movement  should  be,  on  the 
whole,  so  little  edifying  in  their  relations  with  the 


68  Romance  and  Tragedy 

sex.  One  and  all  they  were  dominated  not  by  women 
but  by  woman.  The  gallantry  of  Wilhelm  Schlegel 
is  notorious.  For  the  riotousness  of  Friedrich  his 
Lucinde  is  sufficient  evidence,  not  to  mention  his 
early  letters  to  his  brother.  But  why  multiply  ex- 
amples? The  lubricity  of  Ardinghello  seems  to  have 
awakened  a  response  in  every  one  of  them,  even 
Tieck.  And  not  only  this,  which  might  be  paralleled 
in  more  robust  natures;  but  about  all  their  love  af- 
fairs there  is  invariably  something  morbid  and  un- 
canny. Caroline  was  eleven  years  older  than  Schel- 
ling;  she  was  thirty-five  and  he  was  twenty-four, 
when  he  first  fell  in  love  with  her.  Sophie  von  Kiihn 
was  a  mere  child  of  twelve  or  thirteen  when  be- 
trothed to  Hardenberg.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
Wilhelm  SchlegePs  inglorious  conquest  of  Bohmer's 
widow  after  her  experience  in  Mainz  and  her  politi- 
cal incarceration.  He  seems  to  have  borne  with  ex- 
emplary equanimity  her  infatuation  for  Schelling, 
which  took  place  under  his  very  nose,  and  to  have 
accommodated  himself  to  the  liaison  with  a  com- 
plaisance in  no  wise  short  of  ignominious.  Even 
after  Dorothea's  divorce  from  Veit  Friedrich 
Schlegel  insists  upon  keeping  up  the  irregularity  of 
their  relationship  as  long  as  possible  in  sheer  de- 
light apparently  in  his  own  depravity.  Character- 
istic too  is  the  well-known  passage  of  his  Lucinde 
in  celebration  of  the  transposition  of  the  masculine 
and  feminine  roles  in  love.  Schleiermacher  himself 
must  needs  fall  in  love  with  a  married  woman  to 
begin  with  and  finally  marry  the  widow  of  a  friend. 
But  something  too  much  of  this.  Touched  as 
lightly  as  may  be,  such  matters  are  unpleasant  to 


German  Romanticism  69 

the  English  genius;  were  they  stressed  according  to 
their  actual  importance  for  romantic  psychology, 
they  would  be  offensive. 


11 


In  itself,  therefore,  with  all  its  borrowings  and 
ascriptions,  its  errors  and  confusions,  its  lack  of 
literary  integrity  and  moral  consistency,  German 
romanticism  was  something  wholly  factitious  and 
affected.  It  could  be  kept  alive  only  by  successive 
stimulation  and  galvanization.  Hence  its  cravings 
for  nostrums  of  all  kinds  —  literary,  philosophical, 
scientific,  theological,  and  mystical.  Hypochondriac 
as  it  was,  it  had  tried  all  the  doctors  in  turn  — 
Herder,  Schiller,  Goethe,  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling  — 
only  to  abandon  them  sooner  or  later  for  quacks  like 
Bohme,  Baader,  and  Ritter.  By  its  very  nature  it 
was  condemned  to  be  forced  and  excessive,  or  lose 
its  raison  d'etre  altogether.  Like  a  wrong  headed 
disputant,  it  must  keep  itself  in  countenance  by 
abounding  obstinately  in  its  own  bad  sense  and 
relying  upon  the  violence  and  the  extravagence  of 
its  asseverations.  In  order  to  justify  its  own  exist- 
ence it  had  no  alternative  but  to  browbeat  truth 
and  brazen  out  its  own  absurdity.  For  this  reason 
it  was  always  refining,  subtilizing,  alembicating  its 
own  dicta,  until  it  became  involved  in  issueless 
mazes  of  paradox  and  hyperbole. 

As  a  matter  of  course  the  folly  and  perversity  to 
which  it  was  conditioned  by  its  mode  of  existence 
had  their  roots  in  the  bosom  of  its  founders  and  their 
desperate  determination  to  shark  themselves  up  a 


70  Romance  and  Tragedy 

celebrity,  whether  or  no,  by  bolstering  out  their  own 
character  to  heroic  proportions.  To  this  circum- 
stance is  due  very  largely  the  notion  of  genius  as 
of  something  akin  to  delirium  and  madness  which 
reigns  to-day  —  or  at  least  divides  unequally  the 
honours  with  the  older  conception  of  well-balanced, 
though  exceptional,  power.  This  modern  idea  of  an 
irresponsible,  insensate  fatality  —  "  une  force  qui 
va,"  in  Hugo's  favourite  phrase  —  an  impulse  at 
once  spasmodic  and  irresistible,  a  sort  of  throe  or 
convulsion  of  nature,  may  be  taken  with  due  allow- 
ance as  a  self-characterization  of  the  romanticists. 
It  was  the  deification  of  their  own  character;  and  in 
delineating  their  heroes  they  have  but  portrayed 
themselves,  for  their  "  art,"  such  as  it  was,  had  noth- 
ing impersonal  or  dramatic  about  it.  Life  was  a 
gigantic  mirror  in  which  they  saw  their  own  figures 
a  thousand  times  repeated  and  of  colossal  dimen- 
sions. "  Mich  jiihrt  dies  in  mich  selbst  zu- 
riick,"  confesses  Novalis.  Or  if  it  failed  to  admit 
their  pretensions  to  magnitude,  they  shut  their  eyes 
to  it  and  denied  its  competence  altogether: 

"  Ich  komme  nur  mir  selbst  entgegen 
In  einer  leeren  Wustenei." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  they  all  had  been  spoiled  in  the 
nursery,  and  spoiled  children  most  of  them  remained 
all  their  lives.  The  work  with  which  they  won  a 
hearing  was  almost  uniformly  unfit  for  publication; 
in  France  it  would  never  have  got  into  print  at  all. 
It  was  only  the  abject  poverty  of  German  letters 
at  the  time  which  allowed  them  to  pose  as  writers, 


German  Romanticism  71 

and  precocious  one  at  that.  Tieck's  origins  are  in- 
credibly crude  and  mawkish.  Friedrich  Schlegel's 
first  critical  efforts  are  execrably  written  and  com- 
posed, and  reek  of  intellectual  coxcombry  and  pre- 
tension. Novalis  is  jejune  and  silly.  The  best  of 
them  all  is  Wilhelm  Schlegel,  and  he  is  common- 
place and  foppish.  But  finding  themselves  indulged 
in  their  whimsicalities  and  mannerisms,  and  flattered 
by  their  ability  to  dumbfound  the  respectable  Phil- 
istine, the  Nicolais'  and  other  Aujklarer  of  the  day, 
they  had  no  incentive  to  correct  themselves  and 
clarify  the  ferment  of  their  youth.  And  particularly 
so,  since  there  was  no  authority  capable  of  impress- 
ing or  overawing  them.  For  a  graphic  picture  of 
the  spiritual  conditions  at  the  time  as  they  appeared 
even  to  the  romanticists  themselves,  whose  very  ele- 
ment was  confusion,  I  can  do  no  better  than  quote 
Schleiermacher : 

"  It  is  a  time,"  he  says,  "  when  nothing  human  remains 
unshaken;  when  every  one  sees  just  that  which  deter- 
mines his  place  in  the  world  and  secures  him  to  the 
earthly  order,  on  the  point  not  only  of  escaping  him 
and  falling  into  another's  possession,  but  even  of  perish- 
ing in  the  universal  maelstrom;  when  some  not  only 
spare  no  exertion  of  their  own  powers  but  also  call  for 
help  on  every  side  in  order  to  keep  fast  what  they  con- 
sider the  axes  of  the  world  and  of  society,  of  art  and  of 
science,  which  are  by  an  indescribable  fatality  up- 
heaving as  though  of  themselves  from  their  deepest 
foundations  and  are  leaving  to  destruction  what  has  re- 
volved about  them  for  so  long;  when  others  with  rest- 
less impetuosity  are  busy  in  clearing  away  the  ruins 
of  fallen  centuries  in  order  to  be  among  the  first  to 


72  Romance  and  Tragedy 

settle  upon  the  fruitful  soil  which  is  forming  under- 
neath out  of  the  rapidly  cooling  lava  from  the  frightful 
volcano;  when  every  one,  even  without  leaving  his  own 
place,  is  so  greatly  agitated  by  the  violent  convulsions 
of  the  universe  that  amid  the  general  vertigo  he  must 
needs  rejoice  to  see  a  single  object  steadily  enough  to 
hold  by  it  and  gradually  be  able  to  persuade  himself 
that  there  is  something  still  standing." 

Amid  the  universal  trepidation  Goethe  and  Schil- 
ler alone  exercised  some  sort  of  steadying  influence. 
But  even  Goethe  and  Schiller,  as  I  have  already 
remarked,  were  not  invariably  level-headed.  And 
by  the  time  the  youngsters  might  have  profited  by 
their  better  example  the  mischief  was  done;  they 
were  confirmed  in  their  folly  to  the  point  of  resenting 
criticism  and  admonition.  They  quarrelled  with 
Schiller  and  even  with  Goethe,  and  consorted  only 
with  those  like-minded  with  themselves,  "  Bruder 
im  Geiste."  From  their  early  corruption,  therefore, 
they  never  recovered.  If  they  were  not  thwart  and 
perverse  from  the  start,  they  soon  became  so  under 
the  process  of  deliberate  self-cockering  and  mutual 
admiration  which  was  the  breath  of  their  life. 

Psychologically,  their  leading  motive  was  egotism. 
From  this  one  characteristic  it  would  be  possible  to 
derive  pretty  nearly  their  whole  activity.  "  Das  Ich 
soil  sein"  The  self  was  their  favourite,  their  exclu- 
sive pursuit;  Selbst-beobachtung,  their  darling 
study.  It  is  with  utter  rapture  that  Schleiermacher 
describes  the  glorious  moment  when  he  first  discov- 
ered his  I,  unique  and  unmatchable  —  like  Childe 
Roland's  dark  tower,  "  without  a  counterpart  in  the 
whole  world  "  —  and  recognized  it  for  the  founda- 


German  Romanticism  73 

tion  of  all  morality  and  religion.  Eminently  repre- 
sentative too  is  the  letter  written  to  her  husband  by 
Rahel  Varnhagen,  their  disciple,  when  the  cholera 
was  raging  in  Berlin:  "  What  I  want  is  a  death  of 
my  own.  I  won't  die  of  an  epidemic  like  a  blade  of 
grass  in  a  field,  parched  by  malaria  among  its  com- 
panions. I  will  die  alone  of  my  own  disease  —  that's 
the  kind  of  woman  I  am." 

As  a  result  the  whole  history  of  their  ideas  is  indi- 
vidual; it  is  a  part  of  their  biography,  not  of  the 
history  of  thought.  In  this  sense  it  is  almost  physi- 
ological, like  their  figures  or  their  faces.  In  spite 
of  the  liberty  about  which  they  were  always  prating, 
they  lay  themselves  under  the  very  worst  of  tyran- 
nies —  the  tyranny  of  self.  Their  intellectual  and 
moral  life  was  as  completely  subdued  to  the  acci- 
dents of  their  own  persons  as  was  their  digestion  or 
bodily  health.  Their  mental  and  ethical  tone  was 
as  exposed  to  the  weaknesses  and  disorders  of  their 
own  temperaments  and  as  helpless  before  them  as 
was  their  physical  tone  to  the  weaknesses  and  dis- 
orders of  their  constitutions.  Tieck  had  romanti- 
cism just  as  he  had  rheumatism  —  as  passively  and 
as  unintentionally  —  however  much  he  may  have 
brooded  over  it  when  he  once  came  down  with  it. 
So  it  was  that  they  never  succeeded  in  abstracting 
their  thought  —  there  is  nothing  universal  or  even 
general,  impartial,  and  inevitable  about  their  ideas. 

In  no  respect,  perhaps,  is  their  egotism  more  strik- 
ingly shown  than  in  their  attitude  towards  literature 
and  art  in  general.  As  litterateurs,  ergo  artists,  at 
least  in  intention,  they  were  so  deeply  immersed  in 
their  own  profession  as  to  be  incapable  of  seeing 


74  Romance  and  Tragedy 

anything  else.  Not  only  was  it  the  one  serious  con- 
cern of  life,  it  was  also  the  standard  or  norm  of  all 
other  concerns  whatever.  Even  in  Goethe  the  impor- 
tance attached  to  aesthetics  strikes  us  nowadays  as 
rather  naive,  if  not  actually  silly  —  at  all  events  as 
beside  the  mark.  The  kind  of  artistry  which  runs 
through  Wilhelm  Meister  as  the  sole  preoccupation 
of  every  character  of  any  account  and  which  indeed 
is  the  one  touchstone  of  character,  is  quite  in  the  ro- 
mantic vein  and  belongs  to  the  same  order  of  things 
as  the  Stembaldisieren  with  which  Goethe  himself 
reproaches  Tieck.  But  though  Goethe  may  have 
given  a  kind  of  currency  to  the  idea,  it  was  reserved 
for  the  romanticists  proper  to  complete  the  confusion 
between  art  and  morality,  between  the  conception 
of  life  as  an  accomplishment  and  as  a  duty.  As  for 
so  many  other  of  our  vices  we  are  indebted  to  them 
too  for  the  disposition  to  "  literatize  "  and  "  arti- 
cize  "  life.  Indeed,  so  far  did  they  carry  the  prac- 
tice, so  impotent  were  they  to  think  outside  of  their 
own  categories,  so  inflated  with  their  own  assump- 
tion that  they  must  needs  make  existence  a  play  and 
God  an  artist  also  because  they,  forsooth,  were  them- 
selves second-rate  literary  men.  Even  Schelling  is 
so  carried  away  with  the  draught  created  by  these 
ideas  as  to  place  aesthetics  above  morals,  to  find  the 
consummation  of  philosophy  in  a  work  of  art,  and 
to  justify  metaphysically  the  conception,  which  is 
represented  even  by  Schiller  and  Goethe,  that  the 
only  complete  man  is  the  poet  —  "  die  Poesie  das 
Hochste  und  Letzte  sei"  Heaven  forfend!  What 
a  world  this  would  be  if  all  of  us  were  artists!  But 
with  this  conception,  at  all  events,  the  distinction 


German  Romanticism  75 

between  philosophy  and  poetry,  between  art  and  life 
is  wiped  out  at  one  stroke;  and  reality  and  fancy 
mingle  in  graceful  phantasmagoria.  "  Was  wir 
Natur  nennen  ist  ein  Gedicht,  das  in  geheimer,  wun- 
der barer  Schrijt  verschlossen  liegt." 

Subdued  as  they  were  to  the  spell  of  their  own 
being,  they  never  discovered  in  all  their  aspirations 
after  freedom  that  the  only  liberty  is  the  liberty  of 
self-restraint.  They  failed  to  perceive  that  life  was 
constantly  spreading  its  snares  to  involve  them  in 
a  coil  of  fatal  consequences,  in  a  chain  of  determi- 
nations where  their  independence  would  be  irretriev- 
ably lost  and  they  themselves  would  become  but 
creatures  and  slaves  of  circumstance.  Friedrich 
Schlegel's  Lucinde  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a 
panegyric  of  sexual  passion  —  or  love,  as  he  pre- 
ferred to  call  it.  Its  thesis,  as  far  as  it  can  be  said 
to  have  such  a  thing,  consists  with  the  conviction 
that  the  realization  of  liberty,  of  the  infinite,  das 
Unendliche,  is  possible  through  the  unbridled  grati- 
fication of  this  appetite  alone.  With  pitiable  short- 
sightedness he  seems  never  to  have  reflected  that 
the  moment  he  yielded  to  his  passions,  he  had  be- 
come enmeshed  in  a  network  of  influences  over 
which  he  had  no  control  whatever,  that  he  had  com- 
mitted himself  to  the  conditioned  and  given  hostages 
to  fortune.  Only  by  an  act  of  self-control  and 
denial,  only  by  standing  aloof  and  refraining  would 
it  be  possible  to  affirm  his  ego  in  withdrawing  it  from 
the  consequences  of  its  activity. 

"  Von  der  Gewalt,  die  alle  Wesen  bindet, 
Befreit  der  Mensch  sich,  der  sich  iiberwindet." 


76  Romance  and  Tragedy 

But  consequences  was  the  last  thing  they  thought 
of;  they  were  totally  devoid  of  discipline.  And 
when  they  philosophized,  they  were  merely  trying 
to  talk  themselves  into  believing  what  they  wished. 
Their  freedom  was  the  freedom  to  do  as  they  liked; 
their  liberty,  the  liberty  to  indulge  their  own  ca- 
prices. 

Whether  the  romanticists  consciously  recognized 
the  discrepancy  between  their  profession  of  liberty 
and  their  actual  subjugation  to  self,  it  would  be  hard 
to  say.  In  any  case  their  whole  dialectic  was  di- 
rected to  the  problem  of  reconciling  just  these 
two  different  notions;  though  it  was  only  by 
a  kind  of  sophistry,  in  invalidating  the  authority 
of  achieved  distinctions,  that  they  succeeded  in 
doing  so.  By  obliterating  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  the  outer  and  the  inner  order 
and  reducing  the  former  to  a  tributary  of  the 
latter,  by  such  means  alone  was  it  possible  to  make 
it  appear  as  though  the  gratification  of  impulse, 
which  makes  man  the  slave  of  circumstance,  was 
after  all  only  a  sort  of  self-determinism.  It  was  for 
this  reason  that  they  welcomed  with  enthusiasm  the 
philosophy  of  Fichte,  which  justified  their  existence 
in  representing  the  universe  as  the  creation  of  a 
glorified  and  transcendental  ego.  Xo  doubt  Ficht- 
eanism  was  in  the  air,  and  it  was  of  these  cobwebs 
that  Fichte  spun  it.  But  it  was  as  symptomatic  of 
romanticism  as  acceptable  to  it. 

For  this  reason  their  attitude  toward  nature  be- 
comes extremely  interesting.  It  was  to  nature  that 
they  resorted  in  the  first  instance  because  her  pas- 
sivity had  no  embarrassments  for  their  self-esteem. 


German  Romanticism  77 

They  sought  to  her  as  they  did  to  those  of  similar 
mind  with  themselves.  With  her  they  could  be 
themselves,  unrebuked  and  unabashed.  They  were 
rid  of  the  clash  of  wills,  of  the  constraint  of  human 
intercourse,  of  the  elementary  decency  which  com- 
pels even  the  most  obstinate  and  wilful  in  society  to 
have  some  small  regard  for  the  rights  of  others,  if 
for  no  better  reason  than  a  fear  of  the  unpleasant 
consequences  which  result  from  neglecting  them. 
Before  nature  they  could  flaunt  their  own  person- 
ality as  arrogantly  as  they  pleased.  Above  all,  they 
might  have  of  her  the  supreme  satisfaction  which 
the  egotist  finds  in  the  conviction  that  his  influence 
is  irresistible;  they  could  make  her  over  in  their 
own  image  so  that  she  should  bear  their  very  seal  and 
impress.  That  they  never  saw  her  as  she  is  —  pas- 
sionless, irrational,  meaningless,  a  pure  illusion  — 
is  clear  from  their  account  of  her.  They  saw  her 
only  as  they  were;  they  discovered  in  her  only 
what  they  brought  to  her.  It  is  after  their  example 
that  we  have  learned  to  identify  the  moral  and  the 
natural  world.  Cramped  as  they  were  by  their  own 
limitations,  they  were  incapable  of  conceiving  an- 
other order  distinct  and  remote  from  that  with  which 
their  own  consciousness  acquainted  them.  Like 
Novalis  they  took  nature  to  be  the  "  systematic  in- 
dex or  plan  of  our  spirit  "  just  as  we  ourselves  are 
"  Analogien-quelle  fur  das  Weltall."  And  in  that 
consciousness  of  theirs  they  found  little  that  was 
not  sentimental.  They  had  no  principles,  no  criti- 
cism —  hardly  a  purpose ;  they  were  moved  by  acci- 
dent and  caprice.  Such  is  the  sense  of  every  word 
they  wrote.    Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen  falls  in  love 


78  Romance  and  Tragedy 

with  Mathilde  because  he  happens  to  feel,  on  seeing 
her,  as  he  did  in  a  dream  on  seeing  the  little  blue 
flower.  It  is  circumstance  alone  which  determines 
them  in  one  direction  rather  than  another  —  circum- 
stance and  mood.  And  as  they  were  themselves,  so 
they  thought  of  nature  —  as  something  equally 
moody,  capricious,  and  passionate.  "  Das  grosse 
Weltgemiith  "  Novalis  calls  her.  It  was  a  later  and 
different  turn  of  romantic  thought  which  by  an  anal- 
ogous error  made  her  out  a  being  essentially  intellec- 
tual, while  by  an  inevitable  reversal  of  the  original 
confusion  it  is  man  who  has  become  a  creature  of 
nature's,  a  natural  product,  instead  of  nature's  being 
an  achievement  of  consciousness,  a  sentimental  cre- 
ation, a  gigantic  Kunststuck  or  transcendental  tour 
de  force  —  or  in  Novalis'  words,  "  ein  Universaltro- 
pus  des  Geistes." 

The  volte- face  is  noteworthy.  But  after  all,  the 
two  attitudes  are  only  counterparts  and  are  in  reality 
so  represented  by  Schelling,  who  finally  gave  a  phil- 
osophical organization  to  all  these  indefinite  ideas 
that  were  crossing  in  the  air.  "  It  is  our  view  of 
nature,"  he  says,  "not  that  it  accidentally  coincides 
with  the  laws  of  consciousness  .  .  .  but  that  it 
necessarily  and  originally  realizes  as  well  as  ex- 
presses those  laws,  and  that  it  is  nature  and  is  called 
so  only  in  as  far  as  it  does  this."  It  follows  that  "  the 
system  of  nature  is  at  the  same  time  the  system  of 
consciousness";  that  "nature  is  visible  mind  and 
mind  invisible  nature."  While,  further,  "  nature 
thus  appears  as  the  counterpart  of  consciousness, 
which  consciousness  itself  produces  in  order  to  re- 
turn thereby  to  pure  self-intuition  or  self-conscious- 


German  Romanticism  79 

ness."  "  Hence  in  everything  organic  there  is  some- 
thing symbolic,  every  plant  bears  some  feature  of 
the  soul."  And  he  ends  by  transferring  the  whole 
scheme  of  consciousness  to  external  nature,  using 
his  metaphysical  principles  to  fill  in  the  gaps  in  the 
positive  knowledge  of  the  physical  universe  which 
existed  in  his  day,  exactly  as  Novalis  advises  in  the 
Lehrlinge  zu  Sais:  "  The  careful  description  of  the 
history  of  this  inner  world  of  consciousness  is  the 
true  history  of  nature;  through  the  consistency  of 
the  world  of  thought  in  itself  and  its  harmony  with 
the  universe  is  formed  of  itself  a  system  of  ideas  for 
the  accurate  representation  and  formulation  of  the 
universe." 

At  this  point  the  confusion  has  culminated  in  the 
complete  identification  of  the  law  for  man  and  the 
law  for  thing.  Such  is  the  fallacy  of  the  romantic 
conception  of  nature  past  and  present:  with  Schel- 
ling  it  offers  man  as  the  measure  of  nature  or  else 
with  Renan  it  offers  nature  as  the  measure  of  man. 
How  much  clearer,  or  at  least  how  much  less  prejudi- 
cial is  the  Greek  idea  of  nature  as  of  something  in 
itself  indifferent  or  inert,  as  a  decoration  or  accessory 
of  voluntary  action  or  a  machine  which  requires  in- 
telligence to  move!  It  is  responsible  for  the  whole 
marvellous  Greek  mythology.  Between  the  modern 
and  his  landscape  there  ever  swims  a  haze  —  the 
fume  of  his  own  distempered  imagination: 

"  Die  Wesen  sind,  weil  wir  sie  dachten, 
Im  triiben  Shimmer  liegt  die  Welt, 
Es  fallt  in  ihre  dunkeln  Schachte 
Ein  Schimmer,  den  wir  mit  uns  brachten." 


80  Romance  and  Tragedy 

With  Tieck  he  is  like  a  man  in  a  trance,  a  somnam- 
bulist in  a  limbo  between  night  and  morning: 

"  It  often  happens  that  the  world  with  all  its  tenants 
and  occasions  reels  before  my  eyes  like  a  flimsy  phantas- 
magoria. And  I  too  seem  but  an  accompanying  phantom, 
which  comes  and  goes  and  comports  itself  amazingly 
without  knowing  why.  The  streets  look  to  me  like  rows 
of  mimic  houses  filled  with  silly  occupants,  who  simulate 
human  beings;  and  the  moonlight,  shimmering  pensively 
on  the  pavements,  is  like  a  light  that  shines  for  other 
objects  and  has  fallen  upon  this  wretched  and  ridiculous 
world  by  chance  alone." 

In  this  particular,  it  must  be  confessed,  the  hands 
of  the  romanticist  were  again  strengthened  by  the 
example  of  Goethe,  in  spite  of  his  superior  clarity 
of  vision  and  his  sterner  sense  of  actuality.  For  his 
own  part  he  was  never  able  to  conceive  of  nature, 
in  the  passive  sense  otherwise  than  as  a  work  of 
art  or  in  the  active  sense  otherwise  than  as  an  artist, 
for  his  pantheism  involved  the  one  with  the  other. 
As  such  it  must  exhibit,  on  the  one  hand,  the  same 
sort  of  design  as  any  other  artistic  product,  a  poem 
or  a  statue;  at  the  same  time  it  must  proceed,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  accordance  with  certain  ideas 
similar  to  those  which  determined  his  own  work. 
His  investigations  of  nature,  therefore,  consisted  in 
a  series  of  attempts  to  explain  that  design  by  pene- 
trating to  the  ideas  behind  it.  In  other  words,  the 
universe  was  an  artistic  illusion,  whose  significance 
resided  in  the  motif  which  it  realized  —  just  as  a 
novel  is  an  illusion  whose  only  principle  of  coherence 
resides    in    the    author's    conception.      Practically, 


German  Romanticism  81 

therefore,  since  it  was  a  mere  mode  of  artistic  ex- 
pression, the  problem  was  to  find  the  animating  and 
creative  ideas  which  as  artist  it  was  trying  to  com- 
municate. It  never  occurred  to  him  that  it  might  be 
nothing  more  than  a  mechanical  what-not  —  a 
something  which  had  fallen  together  and  operated, 
not  in  virtue  of  a  set  of  ideas,  but  in  accordance 
with  a  set  of  formulae,  that  it  might  be  something  in 
and  for  itself,  independent  of  the  consciousness  and 
without  reference  to  it.  Hence  Schiller's  perfectly 
just  objection  to  his  Ur-pflanz,  "  that  is  an  idea,  not 
a  fact.'"  In  short  Goethe  was,  in  reality,  not  scien- 
tific, but  literary.  While  art  begins  by  assuming 
that  nature  is  an  illusion,  science  begins  by  assuming 
that  it  is  a  reality.  While  the  former  endeavours  to 
discover  an  idea  that  will  give  it  significance;  the  lat- 
ter endeavours  to  discover  a  formula  which  will  ex- 
press the  manner  in  which  it  works.  For  this  reason 
the  mathematical  theory  of  light  was  simple  nonsense 
to  Goethe.  It  was  not  an  idea,  a  creative  conception 
at  all;  it  was  a  mere  modus  operandi.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  those  cases  where  our  organization  of  the 
universe  is  nothing  more  than  the  interpretations  of 
the  human  spirit  —  or  in  those  sciences  which  con- 
sist largely  in  classification,  which  are  little  more 
than  arrangements  of  data,  in  accordance  with  our 
own  notions,  and  in  which  the  generalizations  are 
in  a  sense  only  categories  of  the  human  intelligence 
—  in  sciences  like  botany  and  biology  he  was  quite 
at  home.  But  even  there,  notwithstanding  his  pro- 
founder  divination,  he  was  virtually  at  one  with 
the  romanticists. 

As  a  result  of  their  exclusive  and  consistent  ego- 


82  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tism,  when  they  came  to  write,  they  had  naturally 
nothing  to  write  about  but  themselves.  That  was 
all  they  knew,  even  if  anything  else  had  happened  to 
interest  them,  as  it  seldom  did.  With  one  or  two 
unimportant  exceptions  they  had  divorced  them- 
selves from  all  the  active  and  practical  concerns 
of  existence.  At  the  one  end  Tieck  had  disassoci- 
ated poetry  from  life  and  reflection;  at  the  other 
Schleiermacher  had  disassociated  religion  from 
virtue  and  morality  —  "  everything  with  religion, 
nothing  for  it."  Their  forms  were  almost  devoid  of 
content  —  in  short,  the  form  was  the  content; 
hence  the  famous  definition  of  transcendental 
poetry  as  the  poetry  of  poetry  and  their  curious 
doctrine  of  second  powers  or  the  multipli- 
cation of  a  subject  into  itself.  The  French  Revo- 
lution alone  of  all  the  stirring  historical  movements 
that  were  eddying  around  them,  seems  to  have 
roused  them  to  a  faint  flutter  of  excitement  — 
mainly  because  they  saw  a  way  to  turn  it  over  to 
the  account  of  their  own  subjectivity.  "  The  French 
Revolution,  Fichte's  Theory  of  Knowledge,  and 
Goethe's  Meister,"  declares  Friedrich  Schlegel,  "  are 
the  greatest  tendencies  of  the  century."  In  conse- 
quence, their  own  novels  are  all  autobiographies, 
revamped  and  redated,  but  cribbed,  cabined,  and 
confined  by  the  writers'  own  limited  experience  of 
themselves.  It  is  so  with  Sternbald  and  Heinrich 
von  Ojterdingen,  with  Lucinde  and  Hyperion.  In- 
deed, this  is  Friedrich  SchlegePs  definition  of  the 
romance  —  an  individual  confession.  And  it  is 
equally  so  even  with  their  philosophies;  of  Schleier- 
macher's  Monologen  Haym  remarks:  "He  talks  as 


German  Romanticism  83 

a  man  would  do  to  his  most  intimate  friend."  In 
a  word,  all  their  writings  are  personalities  and 
indiscretions. 

It  is  only  natural,  therefore,  that  from  the  liter- 
ary point  of  view  their  work  should  be  as  poverty- 
stricken  as  it  is.  But  it  was  not  only  so,  it  was 
muddled  too.  As  they  were  puppets  of  mood,  with- 
out genuine  character,  all  impressions  were  indiffer- 
ent. Just  as  their  criticism  was  destitute  of  princi- 
ples, so  their  creative  work,  their  Dichtung,  was 
destitute  of  selection.  What  marked  it  most  conspic- 
uously was  the  raw  eclecticism  which  is  the  note  of 
romanticism  everywhere  —  a  seated  contempt  for 
the  discrimination  of  a  sane  and  disciplined  taste. 
Hence  a  mishmash  of  motives,  costumes,  cults,  civili- 
zations —  Hellenism  and  Medievalism,  Paganismand 
Christianity — jumbled  together  in  inextricable  med- 
ley. In  this  respect  the  elastic  dream-economy  of 
Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen  is  remarkable  and  amply 
justifies  by  its  conveniency  the  Mdrchen  or  fairy 
story  as  the  romantic  type  par  excellence.  All  their 
Dichtung  is  essentially  inchoate,  as  were  the  two 
products  which  served  them  as  paradigms  — 
Goethe's  Meister  and  Tieck's  Genoveva.  And  amid 
all  this  ferment  and  clutter  only  one  distinctly  dis- 
cernible purpose  —  the  desire  of  these  young  hot- 
heads to  reproduce  the  impressions  made  by  life 
upon  their  feverish  and  excited  imaginations. 


84  Romance  and  Tragedy 


in 

Evidently,  an  existence  of  such  unremitting  self- 
exploitation  must  have  been  extremely  fitful  and 
spasmodic.  It  must  have  had  its  moments  of  exal- 
tation, of  reckless  intoxication  and  Rausch.  But 
these  moments  must  have  been  succeeded  by  inter- 
vals of  desperate  reaction  and  disillusion.  Holderlin 
alone  is  sufficient  proof  of  it.  As  a  result  of  this 
emotional  insecurity,  no  doubt,  originated  the  doc- 
trine of  Transcendental  Irony.  The  title,  ostenta- 
tious as  it  is,  covers  nothing  more  than  an  attempt, 
on  the  part  of  Friedrich  Schlegel  in  the  first  instance, 
to  pass  off  one's  mortification  at  one's  failings  and 
shortcomings  by  being  the  first  to  ridicule  them  when 
they  were  too  conspicuous  to  escape  general  atten- 
tion. It  is  a  common  enough  shift  in  every  walk 
of  life  for  those  who  are  embarrassed  by  the  dis- 
crepancy between  their  pretensions  and  their  per- 
formance to  make  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  by 
anticipating  detraction  and  taking  sides  against 
themselves,  to  vindicate  a  kind  of  critical  or  intel- 
lectual superiority  over  their  own  practical  activities. 
In  such  manner  the  romantic  ego  had  at  least  the 
advantage  of  appearing  to  know  better  than  it  could 
do  and  of  restoring  its  authority  by  a  characteristi- 
cally unprofessional  intrusion  or  supervention  upon 
its  own  work.  Like  Victor  Hugo's  theory  of  the 
grotesque  the  transcendental  irony  was  a  tacit  con- 
fession of  the  writer's  powerlessness  to  produce  a 
perfectly  congruous  and  satisfactory  piece  of  work 
and  an  attempt  to  make  a  merit  of  the  fact  by 


German  Romanticism  85 

erecting  his  weakness  into  a  quality.  In  other  words 
it  was  an  effort  to  insure  the  romantic  poet  against 
the  mediocrity  of  his  own  gifts.  As  Haym,  who  is 
usually  so  reserved  in  his  strictures,  remarks  in 
another  connection:  "  This  is  perhaps  the  most 
striking  index  of  romantic  poetry  —  that  what  is 
elsewhere  an  evidence  of  impotence  and  banality 
[Unpoesie]  it  construes  as  an  indication  of  beauty 
and  perfection." 

From  the  point  of  view  which  has  been  gained  at 
present  it  is  impossible  to  mistake  the  nature  of  the 
transcendental  conception  of  self  engaged  in  these 
speculations  —  as  of  something  distinct  from  all 
that  is  tangible,  palpable,  or  in  any  way  apprehen- 
sible or  accountable.  It  is  something  quite  noncom- 
mital  and  irresponsible.  It  is  uncompromised  by  a 
man's  actions;  it  is  as  evidently  unprejudiced  by  his 
character;  nor  has  it  apparently  any  manifestations 
by  which  you  can  bring  it  to  book.  You  can  not 
corner  it,  try  as  you  will.  Whatever  he  is  or  does, 
no  matter  how  bete  or  fatuous  or  futile  he  may  be, 
the  romanticist  has  only  to  reply  to  your  censures: 
"Ah!  you  are  quite  mistaken;  that  is  not  I.  See, 
I  have  quite  as  much  contempt  for  that  sort  of 
thing  as  you  have."  Verily,  it  was  a  dabster  at 
evasion,  this  transcendental  self.  In  every  instance 
it  eludes  you  and  by  a  like  expedient.  It  "  dema- 
terializes  "  like  a  "  spirit  "  under  your  very  eyes 
and  leaves  you  gaping  foolishly  at  vacancy. 

Upon  morality  the  effect  of  such  a  doctrine  was 
bound  to  be  fatal.  This  retirement  of  the  real  man 
from  his  character  and  occupation,  this  moral  ab- 
senteeism, provided  a  ready  excuse  for  all  sorts  of 


86  Romance  and  Tragedy 

irregularities,  which  could  be  represented  as  merely 
impertinent  to  the  genuine  self.  By  this  means  it 
was  possible  to  excuse  any  atrocity  as  transcendent- 
ally  irrelevant  and  indifferent.  And  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  romanticist  soon  came  to  understand  by 
morals  nothing  more  than  the  uses  of  human  nature 
in  its  laxest  and  most  inclusive  sense.  The  study 
of  morality  was  the  study  of  humanity;  and  it  was 
a  consequence  of  his  eclecticism  that  he  embraced 
in  the  term  the  animal  as  well  as  the  spiritual,  the 
earthly  as  well  as  the  ethereal.  And  since  the  pon- 
derable, if  once  admitted,  is  likely  to  weigh  the 
heavier  in  the  balance,  it  happened  more  often  than 
not  that  his  morality  was,  in  the  ordinary  accepta- 
tion of  the  word,  very  immoral  indeed.  In  fact, 
Schleiermacher  makes  no  bones  about  proclaiming 
"  the  immorality  of  all  morals."  While  further,  as 
humanity  is  infinitely  various,  it  will  follow  that 
there  are  as  many  moralities  as  there  are 
human  beings.  It  is  again  Schleiermacher  who 
with  great  complacency  makes  the  flattering 
discovery  that  the  ego  possesses  a  morality  as  unique 
as  its  individuality.  Perhaps  Lucinde  is  as  good  a 
map  as  we  have  of  human  nature  after  the  romantic 
morality,  where  humanity  is  likely  to  display  itself 
very  much  as  it  is.  But  alas  for  Schleiermacher,  who 
went  to  the  pains  of  defending  it!  it  is  not  only  a 
nasty  book  it  is  also  a  stupid  one. 

"  Der  Pedantismus  bat  die  Phantasie 
Um  einen  Kuss;  sie  wies  ihn  an  die  Siinde. 
Freeh,  ohne  Kraft  umarmt  er  die, 
Und  sie  genas  von  einem  toten  Kinde, 
Genannt  Lucinde." 


German  Romanticism  87 

And  its  viciousness  as  well  as  its  stupidity,  like  that 
of  the  school  behind  it,  consists  in  its  licentiousness, 
in  the  rejection  of  every  principle  of  restraint  or 
control.  The  conception  of  obligation  as  such  seems 
never  to  have  dawned  upon  this  gentry.  As  Goethe 
said  of  the  Schlegels,  "  Unhappily  both  brothers  lack 
some  sort  of  inner  check  to  hold  themselves  together 
and  keep  them  fast "  ("  Leider  mangelt  es  beiden 
Briidern  an  einem  gewissen  innern  Halt  der  sie  zu- 
sammenhalte  und  jesthalte  ").  About  their  conduct 
there  is  always  something  shifty,  unreliable,  incal- 
culable —  it  is  subject  to  a  kind  of  aberration  which 
seems  to  withdraw  it  from  the  province  of  morals 
altogether  and  relegate  it  to  that  of  whim,  caprice, 
and  haphazard.  It  hardly  belongs  with  the  rational 
and  providential  at  all.  It  very  nearly  substantiates 
their  own  claim  of  identity  with  nature. 

It  is  in  this  respect  that  German  romanticism 
differs  most  strikingly  from  New  England  transcen- 
dentalism. The  parallelism  between  the  two  is  too 
close  and  obvious  to  be  overlooked.  To  read  Tieck 
is,  in  many  cases,  like  reading  Hawthorne  translated 
into  German,  or  vice  versa.  I  am  disconcerted  by  the 
similarity  every  time  I  reread  them.  Not  only  is 
there  a  resemblance  of  general  tone  and  spirit  be- 
tween Hawthorne's  sketches  and  such  stories  of 
Tieck's  in  particular  as  the  Blonde  Eckbert  and  the 
Runenberg;  but  there  is  also  a  resemblance  of  style 
and  treatment,  as  is  obvious  from  comparing  the 
opening  of  The  Great  Stone  Face  with  that  of  Die 
Freunde  or  Die  Elf  en.  And  so,  likewise,  with  Nov- 
alis  and  Emerson  there  is  in  both  the  same  character- 
istic  sententious,   fragmentary   manner,   the   same 


88  Romance  and  Tragedy 

brachylogy.  And  what  is  so  amazing,  is  that  the 
scholars  and  literary  historians  would  have  us  be- 
lieve that  there  was  no  direct  discipleship  on  the  part 
of  the  Yankees.  But  however  this  may  be,  the 
leading  ideas  of  the  two  schools  or  movements  were 
much  the  same;  their  philosophy  of  life  was,  as  a 
philosophy,  identical.  What  New  England  trans- 
cendentalism amounted  to  in  the  end,  as  we  have 
had  a  chance  to  see  in  this  generation,  was,  like  Ger- 
man romanticism,  the  apotheosis  of  a  purely  ideal 
and  sentimental  ego  above  character  and  conduct  at 
large,  and  the  arbitrary  elevation  of  the  dicta  of 
this  ego  into  a  code  of  morality. 

To  be  sure,  Emerson  was  himself  a  man  of  char- 
acter and  he  assumed  the  ego  to  be  possessed  of 
such  character  because  he  was.  But  it  was  just  the 
weakness  of  Emersonianism  that  in  its  adoption  by 
others  it  was  bound  to  take  on  the  peculiarities  of 
those  who  adopted  it  —  and  they  might  have  char- 
acter, or  more  frequently,  as  it  has  turned  out,  they 
might  not.  In  other  words,  there  was  nothing  in 
the  original  doctrine  to  guarantee  or  ensue  character. 
And  it  is  on  this  account  that  transcendentalism  has 
again  become  the  philosophy  of  an  age  and  a  country 
in  which  the  general  level  of  moral  action  is  conspic- 
uously low.  It  is  just  the  philosophy  for  a  race  and 
a  generation  with  our  notions  of  liberty  and  self- 
interest  —  for  a  race  and  generation  which  wishes  to 
be  free  to  defraud  its  neighbors  in  the  morning  and 
boast  of  its  moral  elevation  in  the  evening.  It 
affords  a  sentimental  refuge  for  self-esteem  in  any 
emergency.  It  enables  us  in  the  handiest  way  in 
the  world  to  redeem  the  baseness  of  our  practice  by 


German  Romanticism  89 

the  nobility  of  our  sentiments.  No  matter  how  low 
our  behaviour,  how  contemptible  our  acts;  our  gen- 
uine self  remains  untouched.  Herein  lies  the  expla- 
nation of  the  curious  anomalies  of  our  civilization  — 
our  unscrupulous  and  oppressive  money-getting  on 
the  one  hand  and  our  ostentatious  and  munificent 
benevolence  on  the  other;  our  sordid  living  and  our 
grandiose  declamation  —  the  morose  might  call  it 
hypocrisy;  we  call  it  idealism. 

To  make  Emerson  and  the  romanticists  respon- 
sible for  all  these  consequences  seems  at  first  thought 
unfair.     In   his    own   case    there    is    present    one 
idea  whose  absence  is  thoroughly  indicative  of  the 
German  transcendentalists  as  well  as  of  contempo- 
rary idealists.  Emerson  was  still  animated  by  a  sense 
of  duty.    Whether  it  was  a  survival  of  his  descent  or 
an  independent  acquirement  of  his  own,  the  con- 
sciousness of  responsibility  and  guilt  had  not  yet 
faded  from  his  mind.    Though  this  conception  does 
not  appear  explicitly  in  his  work,  perhaps,  it  was 
implicit  in  his  character.     It  is  virtually  taken  for 
granted,  even  though  it  may  never  be  mentioned; 
and  it  is  in  this  particular  that  his  utterances  have 
an  immeasurable  superiority  over  those  of  the  Ger- 
mans.   The  transcendental  idea  of  liberty  had  suc- 
ceeded in  retrenching  the  categorical  imperative  alto- 
gether.    Liberty  consisted  in  following  your  own 
bent.    Whatever  gave  the  self  range  and  opportunity 
was  moral.     In  short,  morality  was  egotism.    Into 
this  error  Emerson  never  slipped.    But  it  must  be 
remembered   that   it   was    romanticism   pure    and 
simple  that  he  preached;  and  that  in  preaching  it 
at  all,  he  is  justly  accountable  for  the  results. 


90  Romance  and  Tragedy 

In  other  respects  Hinduism  too  offers  an  edifying 
contrast  with  transcendentalism.    In  one  sense  they 
were  both  systems  of  the  ego.     While  the  latter, 
however,  is  optimistic;  the  former,  on  the  contrary, 
is  pessimistic.     It  all  lies  in  that.     The  note  of  ro- 
manticism is  eclecticism  —  indifferency,  promiscuity. 
The  note  of  Buddhism  is  discrimination,  distinction, 
reservation.    What  saves  Buddhism,  in  short,  is  its 
dualism;  that  is,  its  freedom  from  confusion.     To 
the  transcendentalist  nature  was  but  an  extension  of 
the  ego;  human  nature  was  but  "  sister  to  the  moun- 
tain "  and  "second  cousin  to  the  worm";   the  in- 
sentient was  but  an  alter  ego  of  consciousness.    To 
the  Hindu  nature  was  a  derogation  to  the  genuine 
self.    And  with  nature  we  must  understand  all  that 
part  of  human  nature  which  was  liable  to  "  natural  " 
law.    Hence  liberty  for  the  Buddhist  lay  in  the  self- 
restraint  which  enabled  him  to  withdraw  more  and 
more  from  the  influence  of  the  fleeting,  the  imper- 
manent, and  the  earthly  until  he  should  emancipate 
himself  wholly  from  the  law  for  thing,  the  mechan- 
ical determinations  of  a  material  cosmos,  and  ensue 
the  higher  and  spiritual,  the  true  self.     Whereas 
Hinduism  would  make  religion  consist  in  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  distinction  between  the  eternal  and  the 
impermanent,  the  one  and  the  many,  and  in  an  effort 
to  establish  the  former;  romanticism  in  the  person 
of  its  evangelist,  Schleiermacher,  would  find  the  in- 
finite everywhere  and  in  everything  and  would  swal- 
low up  both  the  one  and  the  many  in  a  miscellane- 
ous all.  "  The  meditation  of  the  pious  is  only  an  im- 
mediate consciousness  of  the  universal,  of  all  that  is 
finite  in  the  infinite  and  through  the  infinite,  of  all 


German  Romanticism  91 

that  is  temporal  in  the  eternal  and  through  the 
eternal.  To  seek  and  find  this  in  everything  that 
lives  and  moves,  in  all  that  grows  and  changes,  in 
all  that  acts  and  suffers  and  to  have  and  know  life 
itself  only  in  immediate  feeling  as  this  being  —  this 
is  religion."  An  illimitable  diffusion,  a  boundless 
dissipation,  an  unceasing  flux  of  sensation  and  emo- 
tion in  which  all  distinction  and  definition  melt 
away  in  shifty  confusion  —  such  is  the  last  word  of 
the  romantic  religion  as  it  is  of  the  romantic  ethics 
—  endless  dissolution. 


NIETZSCHE 

Tod  dem  Schwachen 

ON  ACCOUNT  of  the  attention  which  Nietzsche 
has  been  attracting  of  late,  the  occasion  seems 
a  favourable  one  for  reviewing  once  more  his  life  and 
work.  In  a  letter  to  one  of  his  acquaintances,  writ- 
ten March,  1884,  he  himself  prophesies  with  the 
proverbial  modesty  of  genius  that  "  in  fifty  years, 
perhaps,  will  the  eyes  of  some  few  (or  of  one,  for  it 
requires  genius)  be  opened  to  what  has  been  done 
through  me.  For  the  present,  however,  it  is  not 
only  difficult  but  quite  impossible  (in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  '  perspective  ')  to  speak  of  me  pub- 
licly without  falling  boundlessly  short  of  the  truth." 
To  be  sure,  the  time  of  which  he  spoke  is  not  yet 
up ;  but  since  men's  eyes  are  turned  in  that  direction, 
it  is  fair  to  assume  that  the  subject  is  not  without 
interest  at  present. 

1.    LIFE 

As  for  his  life  the  critic's  task  is  comparatively 
easy.  In  one  sense  his  thought  is  his  life.  But 
although  his  life  is  singularly  narrow,  his  thought, 
as  often  happens  in  such  cases,  is  unintelligible  with- 
out an  understanding  of  his  character;  and  hence 

92 


Nietzsche  93 

the  very  paucity  of  incident  serves  only  to  increase 
the  difficulty  of  exposition.  A  rich  and  varied  exist- 
ence is  virtually  self-explanatory;  a  limited  and 
unadventurous  one,  on  the  contrary,  since  it  offers 
little  or  no  surface  to  the  critic,  requires  all  sorts  of 
commentary  and  exegesis  for  its  illumination.  For 
that  reason  what  I  have  attempted  is  quite  as  much 
characterization  as  biography. 

Nietzsche  —  christened  Friedrich  Wilhelm  after 
the  reigning  king  of  Prussia,  his  father's  patron  — 
was  born  at  Rocken  on  the  border  of  Saxony  on 
October  15,  1844.  The  stock  of  which  he  came  was 
distinctly  clerical,  a  fact  which  may  account  for 
some  of  his  personal  peculiarities,  to  say  nothing  of 
his  antipathy  for  Christianity  when  he  had  once 
apostatized.  His  father,  his  grandfathers,  one  or 
more  of  his  uncles  were  all  evangelical  pastors,  while 
his  paternal  grandmother  was  of  similar  strain.  Ac- 
cording to  a  vague  tradition  the  family  of  Nietz- 
sche was  remotely  of  Polish  origin  and  noble  descent 
—  an  extraction  which  so  flattered  Friedrich's  aris- 
tocratic propensities  that  he  made  at  least  one  elab- 
orate attempt  to  substantiate  it. 

In  1849  occurred  the  death  of  his  father,  Karl 
Ludwig  by  name,  in  consequence  apparently  of  a 
serious  fall,  which  had  reduced  him  to  helplessness 
some  time  before  this  fatal  result.  On  the  basis  of 
this  lingering  prostration  of  his  father's,  efforts  have 
been  made  to  prove  that  Friedrich's  ill-health  and 
mental  disease  were  hereditary;  but  they  appear  to 
be  anything  but  conclusive.  In  later  life  there  is 
none  of  his  misfortunes  which  Nietzsche  more  re- 
gretted than  the  accident  which  deprived  him  of 


94  Romance  and  Tragedy 

parental  companionship  and  guidance  during  his 
youth  and  early  manhood;  and  it  was  only  in  the 
friendship  of  Wagner  that  he  found  anything  like 
compensation  for  the  loss.  In  addition,  an  atmo- 
sphere of  bereavement  is  not  the  most  healthful  for 
a  precocious  and  introspective  child;  and  after  the 
death  of  his  little  brother  Joseph,  when  the  family 

—  consisting  of  his  mother  and  his  sister,  Elizabeth 

—  had  removed  to  Naumburg  on  the  Saale,  where 
they  lived  with  his  father's  mother  and  two  maiden 
sisters,  it  is  possible  to  detect  the  influence  of  these 
surroundings  on  his  disposition  and  character.  At 
the  public  school,  to  which  he  was  sent  at  the  age 
of  six,  he  was  known  as  der  kleine  Pastor,  the  little 
minister,  on  account  of  his  decorum  and  gravity  — 
such  is  the  material  out  of  which  future  "  immoral- 
ists  "  are  made.  Even  at  that  age  he  seems  to  have 
shown  something  of  the  priggishness  which  charac- 
terized him  more  or  less  throughout  life  and  was 
particularly  conspicuous  during  his  brief  stay  at 
Bonn. 

His  years  in  the  private  school  to  which  he  was 
transferred  the  following  twelvemonth,  as  well  as  in 
the  gymnasium  which  he  entered  in  1854,  affected 
his  development,  no  doubt,  as  they  were  intended  to 
do;  but  the  most  decisive  event  of  his  youth  was 
his  admission  to  Pforta  in  1858.  Pforta  may  be 
described  briefly  as  an  endowed  school  of  rather 
severe  cloistral  tradition  and  discipline,  once  a  Cis- 
tercian abbey,  with  a  reputation  for  the  incubation 
of  scholars.  Nietzsche's  intellectual  life  had  begun 
early.  Even  at  fourteen  he  wrote  respectable  verse, 
he  already  composed  music,  and  was  concerned  for 


Nietzsche  95 

problems  that  never  occur  to  most  Americans  during 
the  entire  course  of  their  lives.  As  a  genius,  to  be 
sure,  he  may  be  thought  to  be  an  exception.  But 
after  all  the  case  is  not  so  unusual  abroad;  and  it 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  in  spite  of  our  com- 
plicated system  of  education  the  French  or  German 
student  in  what  corresponds  to  our  preparatory 
school  is  far  more  mature  intellectually  than  the 
mass  of  our  college  or  university  graduates. 

In  his  early  years  at  Pforta  Nietzsche  founded  a 
kind  of  artistic  and  literary  society,  with  two  of  his 
young  Naumburg  friends,  for  their  independent  cul- 
ture and  development.  Each  of  the  three  members 
was  to  submit  monthly  a  musical  composition,  a 
poem,  or  an  essay,  which  was  reviewed  by  the  chron- 
icler for  the  quarter.  Every  three  months  a  formal 
meeting  was  to  be  held,  at  which  each  member 
should  present  one  of  his  own  productions.  Among 
Nietzsche's  titles  may  be  mentioned  the  following: 
Byron's  Dramatic  Works;  Napoleon  111  as  Presi- 
dent; Siegfried,  a  Poem;  Fatum  and  History;  The 
Demonic  in  Music.  Throughout  his  life,  as  may  be 
inferred  from  this  sort  of  venture,  he  was  ever  pre- 
occupied —  too  exclusively  so  for  healthy-mind- 
edness  —  with  his  own  intellectual  development,  to 
which  he  frequently  found  his  prescribed  duties  a 
hindrance  or  an  impertinence.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, he  may  described,  in  his  sister's  words,  as  a 
model  student  while  at  Pforta  in  all  subjects  except 
mathematics,  which  he  had  no  taste  for  and  neg- 
lected, and  science,  in  which  he  seems  to  have  made 
no  great  progress.  Nor  is  the  circumstance  unim- 
portant for  his  after  thinking  —  particularly  when 


96  Romance  and  Tragedy 

his  scientific  pretensions  are  taken  into  account.  It 
constitutes  one  of  his  most  serious  limitations  —  to- 
gether with  his  slight  acquaintance  with  anthropol- 
ogy and  ethnology.  A  knowledge  of  some  other 
antiquity  than  the  Greek  and  an  initiation  into  the 
natural  and  social  sciences  might  have  saved  him 
from  several  preposterous  vagaries,  even  if  they  had 
not  modified  profoundly  the  general  bent  and  direc- 
tion of  his  thought.  From  the  first,  however,  his 
liking  was  for  what  the  Germans  call  philology;  his 
favorite  subjects  were  Greek  and  Latin,  particularly 
the  former. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  residence  at  Pforta 
was  his  first  absence  from  home  and  he  was  subject 
to  the  shyness  and  the  nostalgia  of  his  kind,  his 
health  and  spirits  were  sound,  and  for  all  his  self- 
centrednesss  he  made  at  least  two  warm  and  lasting 
friendships  —  one  with  Paul  Deussen,  the  other  with 
Freiherr  Carl  von  Gersdorff,  who  clung  to  him  pretty 
faithfully  during  life. 

In  the  fall  of  1864  he  entered  the  University  of 
Bonn,  where  he  fell  under  the  influence  of  Ritschl, 
the  philologist.  In  the  first  enthusiasm  of  his  new 
life  as  student  he  allied  himself  with  a  corps,  Fran- 
conia,  only  to  become  offended  by  the  loose,  coarse 
manners  of  his  companions  —  their  Biermaterialis- 
mus,  as  he  calls  it.  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  he 
had  grown  up  beside  a  doating  mother,  grandmother, 
and  two  maiden  aunts,  to  say  nothing  of  an  adoring 
sister  younger  than  himself;  and  he  soon  provoked 
the  dislike  of  his  comrades  by  his  tactless  attempts 
to  reform  their  habits.  As  a  result  he  grew  thor- 
oughly disgusted  with  Bonn  and  retained  all  his 


Nietzsche  97 

days  a  prejudice  against  German  conviviality, 
though  he  himself  became  an  immoderate  consumer 
of  drugs  and  opiates.  Any  one  who  spends  the 
evenings  in  beer-drinking  and  pipe-smoking,  he  pro- 
nounces, is  quite  unfit  to  understand  him  or  his 
philosophy,  because  such  an  one  must  necessarily 
lack  the  fine  clarity  of  spirit  essential  to  the  com- 
prehension of  such  nice  and  profound  problems  as 
those  he  is  concerned  for.  The  fact  is  that  he  was 
always  most  at  ease  by  himself,  as  he  afterwards 
confesses.  Extremely  sensitive  to  anything  like 
oppositions  of  character  and  opinion,  he  never  felt 
thoroughly  at  home,  perhaps,  except  with  his  sister 
and  one  or  two  of  his  intimates  of  the  moment  — 
though  strangers  and  casual  acquaintances  he  seems 
to  have  found  less  disquieting  than  others.  A  crav- 
ing for  friendship  in  the  abstract  he  appears  to  have 
had;  but  the  type  of  friendship  he  desired  was  that 
of  master  and  disciple.  Like  most  of  us  he  probably 
longed  for  the  moral  stimulant  of  approval  and  ad- 
miration; he  liked  to  see  himself  advantageously  re- 
flected in  the  eyes  of  others.  But  most  of  his  actual 
friendships  ended  disastrously  and  not  all  of  them 
with  dignity.  It  was  to  his  sister  that  he  owed  the 
most;  with  the  exception  of  a  few  years  of  marriage 
she  has  devoted  her  life  to  him  and  his  memory.  To 
her  exertions,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  some  part 
of  his  present  fame  and  currency  is  due.  She  has 
written  two  lives  of  him  —  a  larger  and  a  smaller 
one;  she  has  collected  and  edited  his  works;  she 
has  founded  a  Nietzsche  archive  at  Weimar  and  has 
got  together  and  preserved  every  extant  note  and 
scrap  of  writing  in  his  hand,  including  his  letters, 


98  Romance  and  Tragedy 

which  she  has  been  able  to  come  at;  she  has  de- 
fended his  character  against  posthumous  detraction 
and  she  has  laboured  incessantly  to  enlarge  and  ex- 
tend his  reputation.  Whatever  her  brother's  genius, 
she  at  all  events  is  in  her  way  a  sister  who  deserves 
celebration  with  Renan's  and  Pascal's,  with  Henri- 
ette  and  Jacqueline. 

In  the  fall  of  the  next  year  (1865)  Nietzsche  left 
Bonn  for  Leipzig,  partly  for  the  sake  of  ridding 
himself  of  the  embarrassments  he  had  incurred  in 
the  former  place  and  partly  for  the  sake  of  following 
Ritschl,  who  had  been  called  to  the  latter  university. 
Of  Nietzsche's  formative  period  the  three  great  in- 
fluences were  Greek  antiquity,  Schopenhauer's  phil- 
osophy, and  Wagner's  music  and  personality.  The 
first  of  these  dates  from  his  boyhood  —  specifically, 
perhaps,  from  his  schooling  at  Pforta,  though  he  was 
interested  in  the  subject  as  a  boy  might  be  even 
earlier  and  played  Homer  while  yet  a  child.  But 
the  Greek  antiquity  that  actually  inspired  him  and 
seriously  affected  his  life  and  thought  was  a  Greek 
antiquity  of  his  own  invention,  not  that  after  the 
tame  official  pattern  —  a  Greek  antiquity  that  never 
existed  for  any  other  than  himself.  The  second 
formative  influence,  that  of  Schopenhauer's  philoso- 
phy, dates  from  his  first  year  at  Leipzig.  In  one  of 
his  autobiographical  sketches  he  has  an  interesting 
account  of  stumbling  upon  a  copy  of  the  great  pessi- 
mist in  the  stall  of  a  bookseller  with  whom  he  lodged, 
of  carrying  it  off  to  his  rooms,  and  of  immersing 
himself  in  the  contents  with  a  conviction  of  having 
at  last  found  the  key  to  the  riddle.  And  conceivably 
enough  there  was  much  in  Schopenhauer  to  suit  his 


Nietzsche  99 

humour  at  this  time.  Temperamentally  there  was  a 
kind  of  perversity,  a  sort  of  offishness,  a  disposition 
to  see  things  wrong  side  out  that  was  after  his  own 
heart.  While  conceptually  the  idea  of  existence  as 
a  representation  would  appeal  to  a  something  artis- 
tic in  his  nature  —  which  he  himself  developed  later, 
in  his  own  manner,  into  the  dogma  of  life  as  a  vital 
illusion,  intelligible  only  as  a  work  of  art,  the  diver- 
sion of  an  uneasy  god  for  the  relief  of  his  own  ennui 
and  discomfort.  Nor  is  his  final  philosophy  of  the 
will  to  power  unbridgeably  remote  from  Schopen- 
hauer's notion  of  the  will  to  existence  as  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  life.  There  is  even  at  this  time 
a  prognostic  of  his  future  "  immoralism  "  in  one  of 
his  letters  dated  April  7,  1866,  where  in  describing 
a  storm  by  which  he  was  overtaken  in  one  of  his 
walks,  he  exclaims: 

"  What  were  man  and  his  fretful  desires  to  me!  What 
to  me  was  the  eternal  '  thou  shalt '  and  '  thou  shalt  not !  ' 
How  different  the  lightning,  the  storm,  and  the  hail  — 
free  unethical  forces!  How  blessed,  how  strong  are  they, 
pure  will,  untroubled  by  the  intellect!  " 

At  Leipzig,  too,  during  his  first  year  he  established 
a  kind  of  superior  or  advanced  Germania,  the  Phil- 
ological Society,  and  made  what  he  calls  his  first 
friendship  founded  on  a  moral  and  philosophical 
basis  —  with  Edwin  Rohde,  a  fellow  student; 
"  W eltanschauungsbruder  "  he  names  him. 

On  the  whole  he  appears  to  have  been  at  this  pe- 
riod a  rather  superior  young  person  with  a  turn  for 
self-analysis  and  Selbstqualerei  —  a  Qualgeist  in  his 
own  words  —  oppressed  by  a  heavy  sense  of  his 


ioo  Romance  and  Tragedy 

responsibilities  to  himself.  In  his  letters  of  this  or 
a  little  later  date  it  is  possible  to  detect  those  dawn- 
ing suspicions  of  philology  and  philologists  and  their 
value  as  a  discipline  or  culture  —  even  a  glimmering 
distrust  of  modern  education  in  general  —  which 
were  finally  to  make  him  objectionable  to  his  own 
profession  and  which  he  developed  in  his  Untimely 
Considerations.  In  short,  he  begins  already  to  be- 
tray a  little  of  that  self-sufficiency  of  opinion  which 
became  his  leading  intellectual  characteristic. 

In  the  autumn  of  1867  he  began  his  term  of  mili- 
tary service  in  an  artillery  regiment  stationed  at 
Naumburg.  He  was  extremely  near-sighted,  an  in- 
firmity which  he  blames  for  many  of  his  embarrass- 
ments of  one  kind  and  another;  and  on  that  account 
he  had  supposed  himself  exempt  from  military  duty. 
But  the  requirements  had  recently  been  lowered, 
such  was  the  need  of  recruits;  and  he  found  himself 
within  the  army  net  after  all.  While  he  performed 
his  tasks  punctiliously  and  to  the  satisfaction  of  his 
officers,  he  was  not  particularly  happy  in  them  be- 
cause of  his  separation  from  his  friends  and  his 
intellectual  pursuits.  His  career,  however,  was  cut 
short  in  the  early  part  of  the  following  year  by  an 
accident  to  his  chest,  incurred  while  mounting  his 
horse  and  due  to  his  shortsightedness.  So  severely 
was  he  hurt  that  it  took  him  five  months  to  recover. 
His  return  to  Leipzig  in  the  fall  of  1868  as  a 
private  teacher  is  remarkable  as  the  occasion  of  his 
introduction  to  Richard  Wagner,  who  was  visiting 
a  sister,  the  wife  of  Professor  Brockhaus. 

In  the  beginning  of  1869,  before  he  had  yet  taken 
his  doctorate,  he  was  appointed  extraordinary  pro- 


Nietzsche  101 

fessor  of  classical  philology  at  Basel  with  a  salary 
of  3000  francs.  Thereupon  Leipzig  granted  him  his 
degree  without  thesis  or  examination.  The  appoint- 
ment was  due  largely  to  the  recommendation  of 
Ritschl  and  was  considered  a  remarkable  honour  for 
a  man  of  Nietzsche's  age.  With  his  usual  reserves, 
however,  he  himself  failed  to  look  upon  it  as  a  sub- 
ject of  unmixed  self-congratulation  —  he  had  been 
planning  a  sojourn  in  Paris  in  the  interests  of  his 
further  education;  and  it  was  with  some  sense  of 
disloyalty  to  his  aspirations  that  he  finally  set  out 
for  his  post  in  the  spring  of  1869.  His  entrance 
address  was  delivered  on  May  28  and  seems 
to  have  made  a  mild  sensation.  It  consisted 
of  a  discussion  of  the  Homeric  problem  with 
particular  reference  to  the  ideal  office  of  phi- 
lology in  human  life.  His  lectures  were  attended 
by  an  audience  of  eight  —  the  entire  body  of 
philological  students  at  Basel,  together  with  one 
theologue.  In  addition  to  his  courses  in  the  uni- 
versity he  had  some  school-teaching  in  the  ancient 
languages.  In  any  proper  sense,  however,  his  pro- 
fessional work  as  such  lies  outside  of  his  develop- 
ment and  may  be  disregarded  save  as  it  affects  the 
latter  through  his  material  circumstances.  His 
growth  from  now  on  is  virtually  independent  of  uni- 
versities; from  this  point  of  view  it  is  his  intimacy 
with  Richard  Wagner  which  is  the  event  of  his 
residence  at  Basel. 

As  Nietzsche's  conception  of  truth  may  be  said  to 
constitute  the  paradox  of  his  thought  or  philosophy, 
so  his  relations  with  Wagner  constitute  the  paradox 
of  his  life  or  experience.     That  the  same  man  who 


102  Romance  and  Tragedy 

wrote  the  invective  contained  in  Wagner's  Case  and 
Nietzsche  contra  Wagner  should  once  have  been 
Wagner's  familiar  and  intimate  seems  incredible  or 
monstrous.  For  years  he  had  known  and  admired 
one  or  two  of  the  musician's  earlier  operas  —  the 
Meistersinger  and  Tristan  und  Isolde.  But  it  was 
not  until  the  period  of  his  professorship  that  he  fell 
completely  under  Wagner's  influence.  At  that  time 
the  Wagners  were  living  in  obscurity  at  Tribschen 
near  Basel  —  Wagner  himself;  Cosima,  his  wife, 
formerly  von  Billow's;  and  Siegfried,  the  son  —  and 
there  Nietzsche  visited  them  in  accordance  with  an 
invitation  extended  him  at  Leipzig.  The  intimacy 
was  soon  cemented;  the  strength  of  the  Master's 
personality  and  the  seduction  of  Cosima's  exerted 
their  natural  effect  upon  the  dazzled  young  profes- 
sor, whose  fresh  and  ingenuous  admiration  must 
have  warmed  and  tickled  the  disappointed  old  sen- 
sualist delightfully;  Wagner  was  then  about  sixty 
years  old  and  a  disciple  of  Feuerbach  before  Nietz- 
sche converted  him  to  Schopenhauerism.  The 
younger  man,  for  his  part,  must  have  been  im- 
mensely flattered  by  the  attentions  of  a  genius,  whom 
he  himself  had  had  the  perspicacity  to  discern  amid 
the  general  blindness  and  density  of  the  contem- 
porary public.  In  a  short  time  he  became  almost  a 
member  of  the  family.  "  After  Cosima,  you  — 
and  then  for  a  long  way,  no  one,"  protests  Wagner 
in  a  letter  to  his  address.  While  in  his  turn  Nietz- 
sche produces  upon  the  altar  of  friendship  The 
Birth  of  Tragedy  from  the  Spirit  of  Music,  a  singu- 
lar compound  —  a  centaur,  the  author  well  named 
it  —  in  which  a  fanciful  theory  of  Greek  tragedy 


Nietzsche  103 

is  supplemented,  in  the  very  spirit  of  the  first  gen- 
eration of  romanticists,  by  a  fantastic  derivation  of 
Wagnerian  opera  from  Athenian  (or  as  Nietzsche 
would  say,  Dionysian)  tragedy.  As  a  sacrifice  to 
the  temple  the  tribute  was  complete.  The  Wag- 
ners were  enraptured  with  it.  But  Nietzsche's  col- 
leagues were  dumbfounded  and  offended  at  its 
extravagance.  Even  he  himself  acknowledged  later 
that  he  had  prostituted  his  scholarship  to  his  infat- 
uation and  had  ruined  his  academic  reputation  for 
the  sake  of  the  Wagners.  As  a  result  students  were 
warned  away  from  the  university;  for  a  year  his 
class-room  was  deserted,  Basel  was  destitute  of 
students  of  classical  philology. 

The  fate  of  this  first  book  of  his,  however,  was  in 
no  wise  exceptional.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  of 
Nietzsche's  writings  were  a  disappointment,  if  noth- 
ing worse,  to  his  friends  and  well  wishers.  Even 
the  staunchest  of  them,  with  one  or  two  possible 
exceptions,  fell  away  from  him  as  he  proceeded  with 
the  development  of  his  peculiar  doctrine  —  partic- 
ularly after  the  appearance  of  Human  All  Too  Hu- 
man. During  the  latter  part  of  his  short  career, 
what  with  misunderstandings  and  quarrels,  he  found 
himself  pretty  nearly  alone  in  the  world,  save  for  his 
devoted  sister  and  his  faithful  adherent,  Koselitz, 
known  to  Nietzscheans  as  Peter  Gast. 

It  is  his  alienation  from  Wagner,  however,  that 
he  regards  with  constant  bitterness  as  the  great 
tragedy  of  his  life.  To  account  for  that  sequestra- 
tion is  anything  but  easy.  For  three  years  the 
friendship  continued  with  unabated  warmth  until 
the  Wagners  left  Tribschen  for  Bayreuth  in  expec- 


104  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tation  of  carrying  through  the  project  of  the  great 
opera-house.  Thereafter  the  two  parties  saw  each 
other  only  occasionally.  Relieved  of  Wagner's  im- 
posing presence,  Nietzsche  had  an  opportunity  to 
make  a  return  upon  himself  and  to  think  his  own 
thoughts  unhindered.  That  Wagner  had  deflected 
his  ideas  to  a  certain  extent  is  unquestionable.  Wag- 
ner's was  an  exigent  personality,  tyrannous  and 
intolerant,  and  not  indisposed  to  take  possession  of 
another,  body  and  soul.  That  Nietzsche  had  early 
begun  to  conceive  reserves,  even  concerning  Wag- 
nerian opera,  is  evident  too.  But  the  crisis  was 
postponed  until  the  presentation  of  the  Ring  of  the 
Nibelungen  at  Bayreuth  in  1876.  That  others  beside 
Nietzsche  were  disappointed  and  disabused  by  the 
performance  appears  from  his  sister's  biography. 
Was  this  the  great  idealistic  movement  of  the  future 
—  this  mercenary,  flirting,  faineant  concourse;  wras 
this  the  stuff  of  noble  reforms  and  vital  enthusi- 
asms? Nor  was  the  opera  itself  with  its  veiled  sen- 
sualism and  neurotic  excitability  what  the  youthful 
Schwarmer  had  heard  in  his  imagination. 

Psychologically,  it  is  only  natural  that  as  we  begin 
to  lose  importance  for  an  undertaking  that  under- 
taking should  likewise  lose  importance  for  us.  As 
long  as  Nietzsche  saw  his  own  person  interested  in 
Wagner  and  his  work,  so  long  it  is  intelligible  that 
he  should  have  been  the  latter's  admirer  and  sup- 
porter. While  Wagner  is  generally  unrecognized 
and  at  odds  with  the  world,  so  long  is  there  an  obvi- 
ous distinction  in  standing  his  friend  and  in  recog- 
nizing what  few  or  none  else  has  the  wit  to  see.  As 
his  preferred  interpreter  and  appreciator  Nietzsche 


Nietzsche  105 

is  on  a  level  with  him  —  in  a  sense  he  is  a  superior. 
He  can  congratulate  himself  that  Wagner's  fame, 
if  it  ever  rises,  is  in  part  his  own  work.  But  as 
soon  as  Wagner  removes  to  Bayreuth  and  finds  him- 
self on  the  road  to  success,  surrounded  by  a  crowd 
of  flatterers  and  fawners  among  whom  his  quondam 
friend  is  numerically  lost,  just  so  soon  Nietzsche 
becomes  disaffected.  And  so,  too,  somewhere  near 
the  same  time  he  ceases  to  feel  sufficiently  illustrated 
by  his  discipleship  to  Schopenhauer;  he  is  discon- 
tented at  deriving  or  seeming  to  derive  from  another 
—  such  dependency,  no  matter  how  renowned,  is 
no  longer  a  sufficient  title  of  distinction.  At  this 
stage  it  is  apparent  that  if  Friedrich  Nietzsche  is 
to  have  a  philosophy,  it  must  be  a  creed  peculiarly 
his  own.  There  has  broken  in  upon  him  the  bril- 
liant conception  of  the  reversal  or  transvaluation  of 
all  values.  And  to  this  task  he  addresses  himself 
in  his  Human  All  Too  Human,  a  book  which  I  take 
to  be  the  index  of  the  beginning  of  his  second  period. 
Some  years  afterward  he  describes  his  own  state 
of  mind  at  this  time,  and  the  description  is  impor- 
tant because  it  helps  to  span  the  gap  which  exists 
in  his  written  record  between  his  first  and  second 
periods  —  a  gap  which  it  is  hard  to  bridge  except  by 
a  reference  to  his  own  consciousness. 

"  A  great  and  ever  greater  detachment,  a  capricious 
straying  afield,  an  estrangement,  a  cooling  off,  disen- 
chantment—  only  this  and  nothing  more  was  what  I 
longed  for  in  those  days.  I  tested  everything  to  which 
my  heart  had  hitherto  clung,  I  reversed  the  best  and 
dearest  things  and  looked  at  them  wrong  side  to;  while 


106  Romance  and  Tragedy 

with  everything  upon  which  the  human  art  of  slander 
and  abuse  had  heretofore  been  exercised  the  most  skill- 
fully, I  did  the  contrary." 

The  procede  is  evident  and  it  is  characteristic. 

I  have  dwelt  so  long  upon  the  case  of  Wagner  be- 
cause it  is  not  merely  the  most  important  episode 
in  Nietzsche's  objective  existence  and  is  also  the 
turning  point,  the  hinge  of  his  career,  but  because 
it  illustrates  a  peculiarity  of  his  mind  without  which 
it  is  impossible,  it  seems  to  me,  to  understand  either 
the  man  or  his  philosophy.  From  some  cause  or 
other  his  consciousness  was  extremely  susceptible 
to  polarization.  Almost  any  idea  which  attracts  his 
attention  to  begin  with,  ends  almost  invariably  by 
violently  repelling  him.  Hence  he  is  always  at  one 
extremity  of  opinion  or  the  other,  without  mediating 
between  the  extremes  or  occupying  the  intervening 
space.  By  this  mental  idiosyncrasy  is  to  be  explained 
or  at  least  expressed  his  final  alienation  from  all  his 
friends  as  well  as  his  hostility  to  every  idea  in  which 
he  was  brought  up  —  to  Christianity,  morality,  re- 
spectability, and  decorum,  middle-class  smugdom, 
scholarship,  philology  —  even  to  his  own  character 
and  being.  In  fact,  it  serves  pretty  nearly  as  a 
formula  for  all  his  philosophizing:  what  else  in  its 
essence  is  his  great  discovery  of  the  transvaluation 
of  all  values? 

In  the  meanwhile,  during  his  intimacy  with  Wag- 
ner, his  academic  duties  were  momentarily  inter- 
rupted by  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  which  he 
followed  for  several  months  as  a  member  of  the 
ambulance  corps,  since  his  naturalization  as  a  Swiss 


Nietzsche  107 

citizen  prevented  him  from  fighting  with  the  Ger- 
man army.    From  this  excursion,  which  was  a  reign 
of  horror  to  him  and  haunted  his  dreams  for  long 
afterward,  he  returned  with  a  severe  dysentery  and 
diphtheria,  of  which  he  was  cured  with  some  diffi- 
culty and  with  lasting  damage  to  his  digestion.  How 
much  these  infections  had  to  do  with  his  breakdown 
a  few  years  later  it  is  impossible  to  determine.    The 
problem  of  his  health  is  an  exceedingly  teasing  one, 
upon  which  it  is  hardly  safe  for  a  stranger  and  a 
layman  to  venture.    Nor  in  one  sense  is  it  a  partic- 
ularly important  one  in  itself.    That  he  should  have 
thought  and  written  so  much  about  it  himself  is  nat- 
ural enough;    in  the  critic  the  same  interest  is  a 
symptom  of  morbid  curiosity.    What  is  certain  and 
important  is  that  soon  after  the  war  his  health  began 
to  fail.    He  was  tormented  by  atrocious  headaches 
and  nausea,  which  reduced  him  to  a  misery  of  help- 
lessness.   In  one  year,  he  reckons,  he  lost  a  hundred 
and  eighteen  days  in  this  wise.    After  a  year's  leave 
of  absence  and  a  renewed  attempt  to  carry  his  aca- 
demic work  he  was  finally  obliged   to  resign  his 
professorship  in  1879,  at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  after 
having  filled  his  position  ten  years.    Of  its  own  ac- 
cord the  University  of  Basel  granted  him  a  pension 
of  3000  francs  annually.     On  this  sum,  together 
with  his  own  private  income  of  400  marks  or  so  a 
year,  he  continued  to  live  —  mainly  in  Italy  and 
Switzerland,  wandering  back  and  forth  between  the 
peninsula  and  the  Engadine,  with  occasional  flying 
visits  to  Germany,  now  worse,  now  better,  but  al- 
ways reflecting,  composing,  publishing  until  the  end. 
That  Nietzsche  suffered  from  suppressed  or  incip- 


108  Romance  and  Tragedy 

ient  madness  the  greater  part  of  his  life  or  that  his 
work  is  that  of  a  maniac  —  charges  which  are  still 
repeated  and  which  may  owe  their  vogue  to  Nordau's 
Degeneration  —  such  a  notion  is  absurd.  The  mys- 
terious nature  of  his  malady  may  have  something  to 
do  with  such  suspicions  of  his  mental  sanity.  Even 
his  doctors  disagreed  among  themselves.  At  first  it 
was  supposed  that  the  seat  of  the  disease  was  the 
stomach.  But  his  sister  in  her  latest  biography 
speaks  as  though  it  were  now  authoritatively 
referred  to  his  eyes,  which  were  painfully  near- 
sighted and  which  were  at  times  so  badly  affected 
as  to  incapacitate  him  for  reading  or  writing  —  a 
condition  which  was  regarded  at  the  time  as 
a  secondary  symptom.  As  for  his  mind,  however, 
that  appears,  until  just  before  his  prostration, 
to  have  been  as  sane  as  a  modern  genius'  usually 
is. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  his  consciousness  was 
affected  by  his  ill-health,  and  indirectly  his  thought 
too,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe.  Indeed,  the 
fact  is  proved  by  his  practice  of  composing  in  short 
detached  passages,  whose  length  varies  with  his 
condition.  His  constant  preoccupation  with  the 
matter  is  pretty  good  evidence  too.  He  is  forever 
trying  to  make  out  that  he  is  strong  and  vigorous 
or  else  that  his  sickness  is  an  advantage  and  a  priv- 
ilege. Either  his  disease  is  but  excess  of  health,  or 
it  is  a  kind  of  tonic  —  at  least  a  moral  purgative. 
And  his  sister  is  troubled  by  the  same  preoccupation. 
The  coincidence  argues  some  ground  of  uneasiness 
on  the  part  of  both  which  they  were  equally  anx- 
ious to  allay. 


Nietzsche  109 

As  an  invalid  he  oscillates  between  two  poles.  In 
the  first  instance  he  was  eager  to  justify  or  excuse 
his  own  condition.  Hence  his  early  pleas  in  favour 
of  ill-health  as  a  means  of  discipline  and  illumina- 
tion. Later,  however,  with  the  growing  conception 
of  the  superman  his  admiration  of  strength  becomes 
predominant,  though  it  is  still  on  the  basis  of  his 
own  experience  that  the  part  which  pain  comes  to 
play  in  the  education  of  the  superman  is  to  be  ex- 
plained; who  can  not  bear  pain  in  his  own  person 
and  in  that  of  others  is  unworthy  of  the  election. 
Physically  invalided  himself  he  values  nothing  so 
much  as  force  and  robustiousness.  Hence  his  later 
efforts  to  refer  his  ills  to  a  surplusage  of  health 
and  vigour.  Envying  a  plentitude  of  life  above 
everything,  he  comes  to  believe  that  every  one  is 
animated  by  the  same  emotion  and  to  propose  the 
will  to  power  as  the  moving  principle  or  instinct  of 
life.  His  superman,  too,  as  the  realization  and  em- 
bodiment of  this  will  to  power,  has  the  characteris- 
tics of  his  creator.  His  ideal  is  not  the  ideal  of  the 
strong  man;  it  is  the  ideal  of  the  weak,  who  is  pos- 
sessed by  the  consciousness  of  his  own  powerlessness 
and  who  in  acute  attacks  of  mortification  would  like 
to  revenge  his  own  debility  upon  his  neighbour. 

After  his  resignation  from  Basel  Nietzsche's  life 
was  in  the  main  a  solitary  one.  Most  of  his  early 
friends  had  fallen  or  soon  fell  away  from  him,  es- 
tranged by  his  outrageous  opinions.  Nor  was  he 
himself  the  man  to  suffer  a  partial  allegiance.  He 
complains  frequently  of  Wagner's  illiberalism ;  but 
in  his  own  case  there  was  nothing  more  irksome  than 
the  presence  of  those  whom  he  suspected  of  reserves 


no  Romance  and  Tragedy 

against  him  and  his  ideas.  "  I  am  not  strong 
enough,"  he  says,  "  to  contend  continually  with  all 
the  secret  thoughts,  the  unspoken  contradictions  of 
my  friends."  After  his  break  with  Wagner  he  seems 
never  to  have  enjoyed  free  intercourse  with  a  man 
of  his  own  stature  capable  of  holding  head  against 
him.  His  associates  were  younger  men  or  women, 
or  inferior  intellects  or  characters.  In  this  way  he 
missed  the  correction  that  he  might  have  gained 
from  criticism  and  opposition.  This  disregard  of 
others  may  serve  to  explain  a  kind  of  overbearing- 
ness  in  the  expression  of  his  ideas,  which  accounts 
in  turn  for  their  offensiveness  to  the  generation  for 
which  they  were  written.  For  after  all,  there  was 
nothing  so  very  singular,  even  forty  years  ago,  in 
the  substance  of  his  thought;  it  was  no  more  obnox- 
ious in  itself  than  the  ethics  of  Helvetius  and  Hol- 
bach.  But  its  temper  is  entirely  different.  There 
is  an  intentness,  together  with  a  very  perceptible 
contemptuousness,  about  the  expression  which  pro- 
duces another  impression  altogether.  It  is  the  per- 
sonality of  the  author  as  revealed  in  his  style  —  a 
something  wilful  and  disquieting.  His  habit  of 
abusing  things  accounted  sacred,  his  disrespect  for 
great  traditional  personages,  his  manner  of  apos- 
trophizing ordinary  humanity  as  "  cattle "  and 
"  brutes "  and  "  beasts,"  and  current  morality 
as  the  morality  of  the  "herd";  his  own  assump- 
tion of  superiority  as  an  "  immoralist "  and  a 
"Freigeist"  and  a  "  maker  of  values";  his  reck- 
lessness not  only  of  the  reader's  prejudices  and 
prepossessions  but  also  of  the  difficulties  and 
obscurities    of    his    own    exposition  —  these    traits 


Nietzsche  in 

irritated  and  offended  and  repelled  the  public, 
who  must  have  felt  something  of  the  same  impa- 
tience and  indignation  as  the  members  of  his  corps 
at  Bonn  when  he  tried  to  lecture  them  on  their 
manners. 

In  addition  to  lack  of  recognition  his  later  life 
was  embittered  by  two  incidents  —  his  sister's  mar- 
riage and  departure  to  Paraguay  with  Forster  and 
the  undignified  and  ridiculous  entanglement  with 
Lou  Salome,  afterwards  Frau  Andreas.  That  Nietz- 
sche should  have  resented  his  sister's  marriage  as 
a  defection  is  not  astonishing  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
Forster  represented  principles  that  were  thoroughly 
distasteful  to  him  —  vegetarianism  and  anti-Semi- 
tism —  while  the  colonizing  expedition  to  Paraguay 
was  in  his  opinion  of  an  abhorrently  levelling  or 
democratic  tendency.  The  breach,  however,  was 
only  temporary;  even  before  his  sister's  departure 
he  had  become  reconciled  to  it  —  the  worst  of  the 
affair  was  that  he  was  deprived  of  her  ministrations 
at  the  very  time  when  he  stood  most  in  need  of  them. 

The  affair  with  Lou  Salome  was  more  intricate 
and  likewise  more  amusing.  Nietzsche  had  always 
been  eager  for  disciples.  In  the  beginning  and 
during  his  first  period  he  seems  to  have  nursed  the 
belief  that  he  was  actually  addressing  himself  to 
some  portion  of  the  youth  of  his  time  and  country. 
Of  this  audience,  which  he  supposed  to  be  secretly 
in  sympathy  with  such  views  as  his,  he  dreamed  of 
making  himself  the  prophet  and  leader.  This  elect, 
he  thought,  was  ready  and  waiting  for  the  word  and 
would  rise  and  rally  upon  him  when  he  had  once 
spoken  it.    The  disappointment  which  followed  upon 


ii2  Romance  and  Tragedy 

the  successive  publication  of  his  writings  was  one  of 
the  great  mortifications  of  his  life.  Under  these 
circumstances,  when  one  of  his  oldest  friends,  the 
elderly  Fraulein  von  Meysenbug,  wrote  him  that  she 
had  at  last  discovered  his  disciple,  his  satisfaction 
struggled  with  his  incredulity.  That  the  disciple 
was  a  young  woman  of  twenty-four  was  apparently 
no  drawback,  though  Nietzsche  himself  seems  at 
times  to  have  caught  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  whole  affair. 

In  reality,  the  young  lady  —  Lou  Salome  by  name 
—  who  wras  a  Russian  touring  Europe  with  her 
mother,  appears  to  have  been  something  of  an  ad- 
venturess and  tufthunter  and  was  probably  attracted 
to  the  pursuit  of  Nietzsche  by  his  friends'  report 
of  him  as  a  celebrity.  That  she  was  naturally  clever 
is  evident  from  the  manner  in  which  she  played  up 
to  the  ingenuous  philosopher.  In  spite  of  her 
mother's  amazed  denials  she  represented  herself  as 
a  martyr  to  truth,  whose  youth  had  been  consumed 
in  a  fruitless  search  of  wisdom;  and  she  completed 
her  conquest  by  composing  a  poem  To  Pain,  which 
ravished  Nietzsche  by  its  reflection  of  his  own  ideas. 
If  any  further  doubt  of  her  eligibility  lingered  in  his 
mind,  it  was  dispelled  by  her  assurance,  quoted  in 
his  correspondence,  that  she  was  a  woman  without 
morality  —  videlicet,  an  "  immoralist."  In  accord- 
ance wTith  her  conception  of  "  Freigeisterei "  she  pro- 
posed to  seek  some  university,  where  she  might  re- 
side in  company  with  him  and  his  friend  Dr.  Ree, 
the  ethic  philosopher.  This  offer,  however,  seems  to 
have  shaken  the  gentleman  a  little;  and  as  a  via 
media  Fraulein  von  Meysenbug  suggested  that  one 


Nietzsche  113 

of  the  men  should  marry  her.  The  suggestion 
proved  unacceptable:  Nietzsche  declined  because  of 
his  poverty  and  Dr.  Ree  because  of  his  principles 
—  he  was  a  pessimist  and  viewed  the  continuance  of 
his  species  with  horror  —  a  devotion  to  conviction 
which  Nietzsche  highly  applauds.  For  these  reasons 
the  project  was  abandoned;  Lou  Salome  was  obliged 
to  content  herself  with  private  lessons  in  the  Nietz- 
schean  philosophy  under  the  chaperonage  of  its 
author's  sister.  Is  it  necessary  to  add  that  as  soon 
as  the  pupil  discovered  that  her  master  was  not  the 
personage  that  he  had  been  represented  by  his 
friends,  her  ardour  for  his  teachings  began  to  cool? 
In  the  chill  of  reaction  her  conduct  and  language 
gave  just  offence  to  Nietzsche's  sister;  and  at  last 
Nietzsche  himself  discovered  her  genuine  character 
and  her  perfect  indifference  for  his  ideas.  Worse, 
he  became  suspicious  of  some  hugger-muggery  on 
the  part  of  Dr.  Ree;  and  the  affair  closed  with  an 
embroilment  of  all  parties  and  left  for  years  a  sour 
taste  in  Nietzsche's  mouth. 

This  episode  I  have  related  in  some  detail,  not  for 
the  sake  of  ridiculing  Nietzsche,  but  by  way  of  illus- 
trating his  ignorance  of  human  nature  —  a  subject 
of  which  a  great  moralist  might  be  expected  to  have 
some  knowledge  or  apprehension.  Unlike  La  Roche- 
foucauld and  La  Bruyere  he  had,  indeed,  no  pro- 
found experience  of  mankind  in  the  large.  He  had 
lived  for  no  great  length  of  time  in  any  great  centre 
of  thought  or  activity.  He  had  known  few  men  of 
light  and  leading — save  Wagner.  He  had  frequented 
no  very  distinguished  circles  and  listened  to  no  ex- 
change of  significant  ideas.  He  spent  his  time  pretty 


ii4  Romance  and  Tragedy 

much  in  solitude,  in  isolated  lodgings,  or  casual 
boarding-houses.  His  study  of  human  nature  was 
confined  almost  exclusively  to  himself  and  his  own 
anxieties.  At  the  same  time,  his  reading  was  re- 
stricted for  years  by  the  weakness  of  his  sight,  while 
the  bulk  of  his  earlier  studies  was  necessarily  scho- 
lastic. As  a  result  his  moral  philosophy  was  in  large 
part  erdacht  not  erlebt;  it  was  spun  out  of  himself 
and  in  so  far  liable  to  error  —  it  was  constantly  in 
danger  of  losing  touch  with  actuality  and  of  forget- 
ing  Pascal's  pensee  de  derriere.  These  were  the  char- 
acteristics that  grew  upon  him  toward  the  close  of  his 
career.  It  is  dangerous  for  the  moralist  to  make  a 
habit  of  himself;  even  the  exaggeration  of  his  own 
qualities  is  a  misfortune.  But  it  was  particularly 
hazardous  for  Nietzsche,  with  his  excitable  temper, 
like  some  unstable  explosive,  and  with  his  disposi- 
tion to  megalomania.  With  Zarathustra  the  convic- 
tion of  his  prophetic  role  is  inalterably  fixed.  "  I  am 
that  predestined  being,"  he  declaims,  "  who  is  to 
determine  values  for  centuries."  He  goes  out  of  his 
way  to  vituperate  Wagner,  Socrates,  and  Jesus, 
whom  he  looks  upon  as  his  personal  rivals.  He 
revolves  about  himself  and  his  own  centre  more  and 
more  dizzily  and  light-headedly.  Never  remarkably 
continent  in  the  assertion  of  his  own  importance  — 
at  least  in  his  letters  to  his  friends  —  his  exaltation 
and  extravagance  increase  from  day  to  day.  He 
projects  a  systematization  of  his  philosophy  and 
plans  to  give  the  gestation  of  the  work  the  benefit  of 
a  visit  to  Corte  in  Corsica,  where  Napoleon  was 
conceived.  As  the  end  approaches  he  loses  all  sense 
of  measure,  and  in  the  final  paroxysm  of  his  reason, 


Nietzsche  115 

with  the  relaxation  of  his  inhibitions,  he  subscribes 
his  letters  with  the  names  of  Dionysus  and  the 
Crucified. 

It  was  such  signatures  as  these  which  aroused  the 
suspicions  of  his  friends  in  Basel  and  brought  Over- 
beck  thence  to  Turin,  where  Nietzsche  then  was. 
On  his  arrival  Overbeck  found  that  he  had  suffered 
what  seemed  to  be  an  attack  of  paralysis  and  that 
his  mind  was  seriously  affected.  This  was  in  De- 
cember, 1888,  while  unfortunately  his  sister  was  still 
absent  in  South  America.  He  was  brought  to  Basel 
and  thence  transferred  to  an  asylum  in  Jena.  In 
the  course  of  another  year  he  was  removed  to  Naum- 
burg,  where  he  was  cared  for  by  his  mother  and 
later  by  his  sister,  who  returned  to  Germany  after 
the  death  of  her  husband  in  Paraguay.  On  the  death 
of  his  mother  in  1897  his  sister  carried  him  to  Wei- 
mar, where  she  nursed  him  devotedly  until  his  death 
in  1900. 

II.      DOCTRINE 

Such  in  outline  was  Nietzsche's  life.  To  sum- 
marize his  thought  is  by  no  means  so  easy.  Not  only 
were  his  ideas  constantly  shifting  with  his  mood  and 
surroundings,  but  he  was  an  unsystematic  thinker 
by  profession.  In  addition,  there  is  an  inclination 
on  the  part  of  the  hierophants  of  orthodox  Nietz- 
scheism  to  soften  and  mollify  and  sweeten  whatever 
is  harsh  or  bitter  or  offensive  in  his  philosophy  — 
to  accommodate  his  teaching  to  the  taste  of  the 
public  and  so  denature  it.  To  read  his  sister's  ex- 
positions you  would  think  it  less  a  philosophy  of 


n6  Romance  and  Tragedy 

revolt  than  a  philosophy  of  reservation.  Contempo- 
rary criticism,  too,  in  accordance  with  its  usual 
character,  has  been  wonderfully  indulgent  and  has 
contented  itself,  as  a  rule,  with  picking  out  what  it 
could  commend  without  much  regard  for  ensemble 
or  general  tendency.  Under  these  circumstances  it 
would  be  difficult  enough  to  methodize  his  doctrine; 
but  the  difficulty  is  increased  tremendously  by  his 
habit  of  writing  in  detached  and  disconnected  para- 
graphs, whose  length  fluctuates  with  the  changes  of 
his  bodily  temperature,  ranging  from  the  compass  of 
an  aphorism  to  the  dimensions  of  a  brief  section  or 
chapter.  His  composition,  too,  was  done  largely 
out  of  doors  during  his  solitary  walks  or  rambles. 
No  literary  work  was  ever  more  dependent  upon  its 
author's  health  and  spirits  than  was  his;  for  this 
reason  his  philosophic  periods  are  pretty  nearly  a 
physiological  record,  and  it  may  be  well  to  classify 
them  roughly  before  I  undertake  to  sketch  his 
system. 

If  we  leave  out  of  account  his  youthful  and 
prentice  work,  his  first  or  coherent  period  extends 
from  his  appointment  to  Basel  in  1869  to  the  year 
1876  and  the  rupture  of  his  friendship  with  Wagner. 
The  principal  writings  included  in  this  period  are 
The  Birth  oj  Tragedy  and  the  Untimely  Considera- 
tions. I  have  named  this  his  coherent  period  be- 
cause the  work  of  this  time  has  the  form  of 
consecutive  essays  or  articles.  The  inspiration  of 
the  period  is  undoubtedly  Richard  Wagner;  its 
leading  idea,  the  conception  of  the  world  as  an 
aesthetic  product.  In  The  Birth  oj  Tragedy  he  under- 
takes, in  his  turn,  a  favourite  exercise  of  the  first 


Nietzsche  117 

generation  of  German  romanticists  —  the  deduction 
of  German  from  Greek  literature.  But  whereas  the 
efforts  of  his  predecessors  were  directed  toward 
establishing  Goethe  as  the  heir  of  Greek  antiquity, 
his  own  were  bent  upon  making  Wagner  the  suc- 
cessor of  ^Eschylus  and  what  he  termed  Dionysian 
tragedy.  At  the  same  time,  he  labours  also  to  sub- 
stantiate the  hypothesis  already  referred  to,  that  the 
universe  is  intelligible  only  as  a  work  of  art,  a  kind 
of  play  or  dramatic  spectacle,  perhaps,  for  the 
recreation  of  a  weary  creator.  Elsewhere,  as  in  The 
Future  of  Our  Educational  Institutions  and  David 
Strauss  and  The  Advantages  and  Disadvantages  of 
History,  appear  presages  of  his  revolt  against  the 
received  and  current  ideas  of  his  age  and  society  — 
his  contempt  for  German  pedantry  and  German 
Kultur  in  general  and  for  the  reigning  historical 
methods  of  thought  and  scholarship.  For  the  mod- 
ern Prussian  intellectualism,  which  has  found  such 
a  ready  acceptance  in  American  education,  never 
had  a  more  relentless  enemy  than  Nietzsche. 
Always  a  revolte,  a  mutineer,  an  insurgent,  he  can 
not  be  understood  unless  there  is  taken  into  account 
his  disposition  to  rise  against  established  ideas  and 
institutions.  At  all  events,  such  is  the  direction  of 
his  evolution  —  toward  a  consistent  and  habitual 
opposition. 

His  second  period,  which  may  be  called  inclusively 
his  incoherent  or  aphoristic  period,  stretches  from 
1876  to  the  end  of  his  intellectual  career  in  1888. 
During  these  years  not  only  is  his  strength  insuffi- 
cient for  consecutive  composition  but  as  a  result 
and    with    his    neurasthenic    inclination    to    erect 


n8  Romance  and  Tragedy 

his  weaknesses  into  virtues  he  begins  to  look  upon 
discursive  thinking  as  a  symptom  of  decadence. 
It  is  at  this  stage  of  his  development  that  his  writings 
come  to  take  on  the  tone  that  we  think  of  as  dis- 
tinctly Nietzschean  —  timidly  at  first  but  more  and 
more  audaciously  as  he  proceeds.  His  revolt  has 
begun.  And  it  is  against  his  veritable  self  as  well 
as  everything  representative  of  his  age  that  his 
attack  is  directed.  Himself  he  is  weak  and  sickly 
and  neurotic,  limited  in  experience  by  means  and 
health  and  opportunity;  the  offspring  of  a  Christian 
evangelical  stock;  a  tame,  middle-class,  German 
scholar;  a  more  or  less  conscionable  creature,  prig- 
gish, thin-skinned,  and  sentimental;  a  romanticist 
by  disposition,  with  a  philosophical  descent  from 
Rousseau  through  Kant  and  Schopenhauer;  while 
the  thing  he  admires  is  —  Cesar  Borgia,  the  bold, 
strong,  unscrupulous,  remorseless  human  animal,  the 
"  great  blond  beast,"  grasping,  encroaching,  aggres- 
sive, disciplined  for  conquest,  the  master  of  power 
and  success,  imperial  and  aristocratic  (vornehm  is 
his  word),  in  short,  the  very  thing  he  was  not,  but 
the  very  thing  he  would  be  —  the  very  thing,  per- 
haps, that  in  his  Dionysian  intoxication  he  may  have 
fancied  himself.  Nothing  at  first  thought  could  be 
stranger  —  save  to  the  alienist  —  than  to  find  a 
man  blaspheming  his  own  virtues  in  a  series  of 
staccado  denials  wrung  from  him  by  his  own  debility. 
It  all  indicates  how  little  he  knew  himself.  He 
expatiates  upon  his  modesty  and  warns  himself 
against  self-depreciation  as  his  besetting  sin;  but 
he  has  no  hesitation  in  speaking  of  himself  as  "  the 
most  independent  mind  in  Europe  and  the  only  Ger- 


Nietzsche  119 

man  writer,"  while  elsewhere  he  denominates  him- 
self a  "  fatality  "  and  in  the  same  letter,  to  Brandes, 
remarks  that  "  in  ten  years  the  whole  world  will  be 
writhing  in  convulsions  "  on  his  account  —  a  proph- 
ecy of  which  some  credulous  critics  believe  we  are 
now  seeing  the  fulfilment  albeit  a  little  tardily.  In 
his  own  opinion  Zarathustra  is  "  an  event  without 
parallel  in  literature  and  philosophy  and  poetry 
and  morality,"  while  he  considers  himself  to  be  "  by 
all  odds  the  most  independent  and  profoundest 
thinker  in  the  grand  style  extant."  As  for  any  one 
who  has  the  slightest  conception  of  his  significance, 
he  is  convinced  that  such  an  one  must  start  out 
with  the  postulate  that  he  has  had  a  wider  experi- 
ence in  his  own  person  than  any  man  who  ever  lived. 
In  a  word,  his  professions  concerning  himself  are 
utterly  unreliable.  But  nevertheless  it  is  impossible 
to  understand  him  without  reckoning  with  this  in- 
stinctive reaction  against  himself  as  a  creature  of 
his  civilization  which  constitutes  the  motive  of  the 
second  and  characteristic  period  of  his  intellectual 
being. 

For  convenience,  however,  this  general  period  may 
be  split  into  two  minor  or  sub-periods.  The  first 
is  composed  of  a  crepuscular  stage  reaching  to  1882, 
which  is  represented  by  the  collection  of  apothegms 
entitled  Human  All  Too  Human,  1878,  and  Miscel- 
laneous Opinions,  1879.  During  this  interval  his 
health  was  very  bad  and  his  spirit  correspondingly 
affected.  As  a  consequence  these  utterances  are 
the  briefest  of  any  he  has  written  —  sometimes  but 
a  few  lines  in  length,  hardly  more  than  breathless 
jottings  —  generally  destructive  in  character,  search- 


120  Romance  and  Tragedy 

ings  or  gropings  in  the  dusk  of  his  own  consciousness. 
His  line  is  not  wholly  clear  to  him  as  yet;  though  as 
the  Einsamer,  the  recluse,  the  great  solitary  genius, 
as  whom  he  has  begun  to  pose,  it  is  clear  to  him  that 
he  will  not  be  contented  with  any  ordinary  philoso- 
phy. Of  philosophy,  particularly  of  moral  philoso- 
phy, indeed,  he  has  come  to  be  exceedingly  jealous; 
he  grudges  her  any  lord  but  him.  Hence  his  mount- 
ing scorn  of  Plato  and  Socrates;  hence  his  rising 
suspicion  of  Jesus,  though  he  has  not  succeeded  in 
rationalizing  his  distaste  for  these  personalities  so 
consistently  as  he  will  yet  do. 

As  his  health  improves,  his  temper  becomes  rather 
more  sanguine;  he  gains  a  little  greater  mastery 
over  his  logical  processes;  his  aphorisms  lengthen  — 
and  there  begins  to  dawn  what  I  will  call  his  auroral 
sub-period  from  the  title  of  its  principal  work, 
Aurora  (Morgenrothe)  1881,  which  was  followed  in 
1882  by  The  Merry  Science.  Save  for  the  improve- 
ment in  his  mental  tone  and  the  increased  length  of 
his  paragraphs  it  would  be  difficult  to  state  in  so 
many  words  the  difference  between  this  sub-period 
and  the  preceding.  The  one  is  merely  a  develop- 
ment and  prolongation  of  the  other.  His  ideas  are 
more  clearly  denned  and  he  is  more  certain  of  him- 
self and  of  his  mission  —  or  Aujgabe,  as  he  calls  it. 
He  has  become  more  set  and  confirmed  in  his  own 
way  of  thinking.  His  style  grows  more  tense  and 
vibrant,  and  as  happens  with  most  authors,  begins 
to  react  upon  his  thought  and  determine  to  some 
extent  what  his  ideas  shall  be.  But  his  work  remains 
essentially  destructive;  it  is  still  the  immorality  of 
morality  with  which  he  is  concerned.    As  far  as  he 


Nietzsche  121 

may  be  said  ever  to  have  had  a  constructive  impulse, 
it  is  in  his  next  or  final  stage,  which  may  be  called  his 
vertiginous  period,  being  marked  by  numerous  allu- 
sions to  dancing,  floating,  soaring,  rope-walking,  and 
such  like  dizzy  acrobatic  exercises.  Its  principal 
productions  are  Zarathustra,  the  Nietzschean  bible, 
and  Beyond  Good  and  Evil.  It  is  to  this  stage  of 
his  life,  as  I  have  just  said,  that  his  constructive 
ideas,  if  so  they  may  be  called,  belong.  It  is  the  time 
of  "  the  Everlasting  Recurrence  "  and  the  "  Super- 
man," the  conception  of  the  new  morality  or  disci- 
pline, the  training  for  conquest  —  it  is  the  ja-sagende 
period  or  period  of  affirmation. 

As  such  it  is  dominated  by  the  fantastic  figure  of 
Zarathustra  as  his  earlier  period  was  dominated  by 
that  of  Wagner.  Not  that  Zarathustra  is  himself 
the  perfected  superman  or  consummation;  he  is 
rather  the  Wegweiser,  the  guide  or  the  teacher  of 
the  higher  order.  In  his  manner  he  is  the  mature 
embodiment  of  the  Nietzschean  heroic  —  a  concep- 
tion tentatively  expressed  in  two  of  the  Untimely 
Considerations,  in  Schopenhauer  as  an  Educator  and 
Richard  Wagner  at  Bayreuth.  To  a  certain  extent 
he  is  nothing  but  Nietzsche  himself  magnified  and 
enhaloed  by  the  fumes  of  the  Dionysian  Rausch  or 
inebriation.  As  this  vision  grows  upon  him,  his 
language  enters  upon  an  apocalyptic  stage,  which 
becomes  ever  more  nervous,  shrill,  and  exalted  as 
the  crisis  approaches. 

Such  are  Nietzsche's  chief  literary  dates  and  titles. 
To  reconcile  all  the  opinions  emitted  during  these 
years  would  be  an  impossible  task.  There  are  few 
ideas,  I  suppose,  in  whose  favour  it  would  not  be 


122  Romance  and  Tragedy 

possible  to  quote  a  text  from  Nietzsche,  if  there 
were  any  point  in  doing  so.  All  the  expositor  can 
do  in  such  a  case  is  to  launch  himself  upon  his 
author's  traces  relying  on  his  own  scent  to  keep  him 
somewhere  near  the  trail. 

To  begin  with,  then,  Nietzsche  professed  a  pro- 
found contempt  for  the  value  of  truth  as  such.  In 
Plato's  Republic  there  is  a  curious  passage,  which 
every  one  will  recall,  to  the  effect  that  every  system 
of  government  is  founded  at  bottom  upon  a  lie  — 
or  more  diplomatically,  a  convention  of  some  sort. 
So  Plato  in  his  turn  proposes  rather  diffidently  that 
in  the  interest  of  social  distinctions  the  members  of 
his  polity  shall  be  instructed  that  they  are  all  chil- 
dren of  the  earth  and  hence  brothers  but  that  they 
are  formed  of  different  metals,  some  more  precious 
than  others.  To  be  sure  he  apologizes  for  the  gross- 
ness  of  the  falsehood,  though  if  he  had  lived  long 
enough  to  hear  of  the  infallibility  of  majorities,  he 
might  have  spared  his  self-reproaches.  But  at  all 
events,  in  his  general  principle  Nietzsche  would  have 
cheerfully  concurred.  According  to  the  latter  the 
test  of  an  idea  is  not  its  truth  but  its  utility;  that  is, 
its  power  to  abuse  society  to  its  own  advantage. 
"  The  world  with  which  we  have  to  do,"  he  says,  "  is 
false  —  or  in  other  words,  it  is  not  a  fact  but  the 
poetization  (Ausdichtung)  and  rounding  out  of  a 
meagre  sum  of  observations;  it  is  in  a  state  of  flux 
as  of  something  becoming,  a  constantly  self-shifting 
falsehood,  which  never  approaches  truth  for  —  there 
is  no  truth."  While  elsewhere  he  defines  this  truth 
which  is  not,  as  "  a  kind  of  error  without  which  a 
certain  kind  of  living  being  could  not  exist." 


Nietzsche  123 

This,  then,  is  the  basis  of  the  Nietzschean  phi- 
losophy—  a  disbelief  in  truth  as  a  fruitful  and 
practical  human  motive.  To  be  sure,  men  have  mis- 
takenly devoted  themselves  to  the  pursuit  of  truth 
as  a  high  and  sacred  calling.  But  whenever  they 
have  done  so,  they  and  the  race  have  suffered  for  it. 
"  For  what  has  humanity  paid  the  most  dearly  and 
for  what  has  it  been  penalized  the  most  severely?  " 
he  demands,  and  answers  pitilessly,  "  For  its 
truths."  What  man  lives  by  is  illusion,  imagination 
—  error.  In  fact,  so  riddled  and  worm-eaten  with 
falsehood  is  the  life  of  man  that  it  is  impossible  to 
comprehend  the  world  as  the  work  of  a  moral  being; 
its  origin  is  explicable  by  an  artist-creator  alone. 
In  his  contempt  for  anything  like  an  absolute  stand- 
ard, in  his  conception  of  substance  only  as  a  shift- 
ing illusion  Nietzsche  is  not  so  very  far  removed 
from  the  position  of  the  pragmatists.  If  anything, 
however,  the  advantage  of  clearness,  even  of  honesty 
is  so  far  on  his  side.  At  all  events  he  avoids  the 
confusion,  the  ambiguity  of  confounding  being  with 
becoming;  he  declines  to  apply  the  term  truth  to 
a  set  of  connotations  which  are  entirely  different. 
And  as  usual  he  suffers  the  drawback  of  his  honesty. 
To  confess  to  a  philosophy  of  falsehood  would  seem 
in  itself  enough  to  discredit  the  thinker  —  one 
reason,  perhaps,  why  the  pragmatists  have  stuck  to 
the  name  of  truth  while  shuffling  away  the  reality. 
What  confidence  are  we  to  place  in  the  conclusions 
of  a  moralist  who  posits  the  undesirability  of  truth 
and  the  vital  necessity  of  falsehood?  The  predica- 
ment is  a  serious  one:  either  his  ideas  are  true  but 
worthless  or  else  they  are  useful  but  false.    Perhaps 


124  Romance  and  Tragedy 

it  would  not  be  improper  to  speak  of  this  as 
Nietzsche's  intellectual  paradox  —  though  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  attentive  reader  encounters  any 
number  of  others  in  attempting  to  harmonize  the 
utterances  of  this  spasmodic  and  inconsequent 
thinker. 

At  all  events,  his  premises  involve  the  disgrace  of 
reason  —  a  position  in  which  he  anticipates  the  anti- 
intellectualists.  Indeed,  it  is  not  a  little  creditable 
to  Nietzsche's  shrewdness  that  almost  all  our  modern 
heresies  —  what  we  are  denominating  just  now  our 
advanced  ideas,  though  they  are  pre-Socratic,  most 
of  them  —  find  an  oracular  mouthpiece  in  him  — 
with  the  one  exception  of  social  democracy.  He  was 
born  to  be  the  prophet  of  the  one-sided  and  unbal- 
anced. It  is  they  who  have  made  his  reputation  as 
it  is  he  who  has  given  them  tongue.  Only  in  this 
instance,  as  he  has  continued  to  use  the  reason  as  an 
instrument  of  demolition  after  disqualifying  it,  he 
has  thrown  a  certain  suspicion  upon  the  soundness 
of  his  own  coinage. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  thus  much  of  his  thought  is 
certain.  The  fundamental  principle  of  existence  is 
not  the  thirst  for  truth  —  that  is  a  sign  of  decad- 
ence; the  worst  enemy  the  vital  principle  has  ever 
known  is  knowledge.  The  living  instinct  is,  in 
reality,  the  will  to  power.  Superficially,  the  idea  is 
not  unlike  the  underlying  conception  of  the  Welt 
ah  Wille  und  Vorstellung  and  was  unquestionably 
suggested  by  his  study  of  Schopenhauer  —  in  fact, 
most  of  his  views  are  either  transformations  or  in- 
versions. But  whereas  the  latter  philosopher  sees 
the  whole  impulse  and  motive  of  existence,  formally 


Nietzsche  125 

at  least,  in  the  mere  desire  or  will  to  live,  the  former 
sees  it  in  what  he  considers  the  vastly  more  potent 
instinct  of  personal  expansion  and  aggrandizement. 
In  simple  terms,  life  is  to  Schopenhauer  nothing 
more  or  less  than  a  bad  habit,  a  vice  of  which  we 
may  break  ourselves  as  a  race  by  a  kind  of  passivity 
or  resignation  of  will.  To  the  author  of  such  a  view 
humanity  is  bound  to  seem  a  sorry  spectacle;  his 
system  is  an  unrelieved  pessimism  centring  about 
the  one  cardinal  virtue  of  pity.  But  to  Nietzsche, 
who  prides  himself  upon  his  optimism  —  he  remarks 
very  shrewdly  that  no  one  so  badly  off  as  he  can 
afford  to  be  a  pessimist;  it  would  look  like  sheer 
petulance  —  to  him  such  an  hypothesis  as  Schopen- 
hauer's is  not  only  temperamentally  unacceptable  but 
is  inadequate  to  account  for  the  tremendous  vigour 
and  variety,  the  elan  of  life  as  he  interprets  it.  Not 
mere  existence  is  the  aim  and  end  of  existence,  not 
the  bare  sustaining  of  life  from  day  to  day,  any  more 
than  the  discovery  of  truth  for  its  own  sake;  but 
assertion,  enlargement,  development.  No  being 
worthy  of  the  name  is  content  with  a  mere  minimum 
or  even  a  modicum  of  possession  material  or  other. 
On  such  a  theory  progress,  even  evolution  itself  is 
unthinkable;  creation  would  remain  forever  station- 
ary; possibility  would  vanish.  But  every  living 
creature,  plant  and  animal  alike,  is  constantly  strug- 
gling, striving  to  free  its  elbows,  to  stretch  its 
boundaries,  to  wrench  a  little  more  from  opportun- 
ity. The  struggle  for  existence,  with  its  corollary 
the  survival  of  the  fittest,  implies  more  than  passive 
adaptation  to  environment;  it  implies  encroachment, 
aggression,  domination  whether  over  nature  herself 


126  Romance  and  Tragedy 

or  other  organisms.  Look  at  the  very  character 
and  conditions  of  nutrition;  we  must  prey  upon 
something  living  if  we  ourselves  are  to  live.  Con- 
quest is  the  law  of  life. 

The  genesis  of  the  idea,  as  related  by  Nietzsche 
to  his  sister,  is  conclusive  to  its  character.  It  was 
during  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  in  which  he  took 
part  as  a  member  of  the  ambulance  train,  that  he 
was  resting  one  evening  on  a  stone  wall  by  a  little 
town  in  the  trail  of  the  army.  All  of  a  sudden  he  was 
roused  from  his  reverie  by  the  thundering  hoofs  of 
a  squadron  of  horse  galloping  past,  followed  by  the 
crashing  of  a  detachment  of  artillery  and  the  pound- 
ing of  a  body  of  infantry  marching  at  double-quick. 
The  whole  spectacle  was  so  imposing  as  a  display 
of  organized  force  that  "  I  felt,"  he  says,  "  for  the 
first  time  .  .  .  that  the  strongest  and  highest  will 
to  live  does  not  come  to  expression  in  a  wretched 
struggle  for  existence  but  as  a  will  to  fight,  a  will  to 
power  and  domination."  Consistently  he  always 
prided  himself  upon  his  own  truculence.  In  a  letter 
to  Brandes,  written  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  he 
remarks:  "  I  was  born  on  the  battlefield  of  Liitzen; 
the  first  name  I  heard  was  that  of  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus.  ...  I  understand  the  management  of  two 
arms,  the  sabre  and  the  cannon.  ...  I  am  by 
instinct  a  brave,  even  a  military  animal." 

In  brief,  Nietzsche's  fundamental  principle  is  the 
principle  of  imperialism,  as  its  genealogy  shows. 
And  the  worst  is  that  with  Nietzsche  the  conception 
never  rises  above  its  individualistic  form.  Beyond 
the  imperialism  of  the  individual  to  the  imperialism 
of  the  group  or  nation,  much  less  to  that  of  the  race 


Nietzsche  127 

where  human  expansion  may  happily  find  its  full 
activity  in  the  subjugation  of  nature  —  to  such  a  col- 
lective outlook  Nietzsche  never  attains.  His  teach- 
ing is  purely  selfish  and  egotistic  and  anti-social.  It 
insists  that  the  whole  justification  of  society  con- 
sists in  the  production  of  exceptional  individuals. 
It  is  for  its  great  men  that  the  state  exists;  the 
genius  is  the  sole  raison  d'etre  of  humanity  —  even 
his  own  ethics  has  no  ostensible  defence  and  inten- 
tion save  as  the  morality  of  genius.  To  the  "  herd," 
to  the  "  others,"  who  are  the  mere  means  or  tools 
for  the  production  and  maintenance  of  the  genius, 
it  has  no  application  whatsoever.  Slavery,  in  fact 
if  not  in  name,  is  an  indispensable  institution  for  the 
promotion  of  this  one  object  for  which  society  exists. 
All  great  polities  and  nations  have  been  slave-states, 
as  witness  Athens,  Sparta,  and  Rome.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  men  are  divided  naturally  into  just  two 
classes  —  commanders  and  obeyers,  masters  and 
slaves;  and  it  is  only  an  identical  proposition  to  say 
that  the  former  are  the  state.  With  numbers  and 
averages  and  complexes  he  has  no  patience.  At  best, 
his  ideas  may  be  said  to  answer  to  the  facts  of  the 
physical  and  biological  sciences  —  that  is,  the 
"  natural  "  sciences ;  with  the  moral  sciences  so- 
called  it  has  nothing  to  do.  Hence  its  one-sidedness, 
its  deceptive  appearance  of  plausibility  when  viewed 
physiologically,  and  its  lurking  air  of  insincerity 
as  of  one  suppressing  a  portion  of  the  truth,  a  teller 
of  half  the  story.  And  even  had  Nietzsche  supplied 
the  defects  in  his  education  by  a  later  study  of  the 
newer  and  more  social  sciences,  he  would  still  have 
suffered  as  a  moralist  from  his  aristocratic  bias.    In 


128  Romance  and  Tragedy 

restricting  his  attention  to  the  genius  —  that  is, 
by  definition  to  the  exception  —  and  what  was  worse, 
to  the  study  of  himself  as  such,  he  was  bound  to 
falsify  the  moral  problem;  for  the  ordinary  man, 
for  humanity  the  main  affair  of  morals  must  always 
be  a  concern  for  duty,  for  obligation  not  for  pre- 
rogative or  privilege;  while  still  further,  his  igno- 
rance of  feminine  psychology,  of  woman,  of  one 
entire  sex  crippled  him  even  more  seriously,  if  any- 
thing, as  a  moral  investigator. 

To  return  to  Nietzsche's  point  of  view,  however, 
it  is  evident  from  what  precedes  that  not  truth  but 
the  will  to  power,  the  instinct  of  imperialism  is  the 
one  genuine  standard  of  all  values.  Since  it  is  the  de- 
sire for  expansion  and  enlargement  which  is  the  vital 
principle  —  not  the  thirst  for  knowledge  or  even 
the  modest  instinct  of  self-preservation  —  it  is 
by  the  first  touchstone  that  every  conception,  every 
institution  is  finally  to  be  tried.  Does  it  stimulate 
and  increase  and  exalt  the  vitality,  it  is  good;  does 
it  check  or  weaken  or  depress  the  activities,  it  is 
bad.  Such,  in  his  view,  is  the  explanation  of  the  par- 
ticular eminence  of  Greek  tragedy  in  its  best  days. 
And  it  is  remarkable  for  the  persistency  of  his  under- 
lying ideas  that  the  Birth  of  Tragedy,  one  of  his 
earliest  works,  should  conform  in  its  large  outlines 
to  principles  which  come  to  definitive  expression  only 
years  later.  That  his  belief  in  the  will  to  power 
should  have  been  inspired  by  his  reading  of  Greek 
philosophy  seems  impossible;  it  is  much  more  likely 
that  his  interpretaton  of  antiquity  reflects  his  study 
of  Schopenhauer.  But  then  consider  what  Friedrich 
Schlegel  made  of  the  Greeks.    There  is  apparently 


Nietzsche  129 

something  peculiarly  exciting  and  unsettling  for 
such  unbalanced  brains  in  this  particular  literature. 
It  is  probably  on  this  account  that  the  Greeks 
whom  Nietzsche  extols  are  pre-Socratic;  Plato  and 
Euripides  represent  for  him  the  decadence  of  phi- 
losophy and  drama.  But  in  the  flourishing  of  Greek 
tragedy  —  a  "  Dionysian  "  tragedy  —  of  which  Ms- 
chylus  marks  the  term,  he  sees  an  heroic  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  Greeks  to  steel  their  souls  to  the 
rigours  of  life.  Neither  a  weak  nor  a  happy  people 
could  have  conceived  such  a  drama.  His  theory 
of  dramatic  origins  is  rather  grotesque,  certainly 
unconvincing;  but  it  is  interesting  for  the  distinction 
it  draws  among  the  faculties,  a  distinction  which 
serves  in  a  measure  as  a  map  of  his  own  mind. 
According  to  this  classification  human  nature  and 
with  it  the  sources  of  human  inspiration  are  parti- 
tioned into  two  parts  or  sides  —  the  Apollonian  and 
the  Dionysiam  '  Roughly,  the  Apollonian  is  the 
intellectual;  it  is  the  constructive,  architectonic  fac- 
ulty or  faculties;  the  Dionysian  is  the  instinctive, 
non-plastic,  and  musical  faculty.  To  be  sure,  these 
definitions  are  too  clear  and  definite  to  represent 
Nietzsche  quite  correctly;  the  characteristic  state 
which  he  assigns  to  each  is  by  no  means  so  lucid  as 
my  statement  would  seem  to  imply.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  is  dreaming  which  he  assigns  as  the  typical 
activity  of  the  Apollonian  spirit,  having  in  mind,  I 
suppose,  the  vivid  evocative  and  visualizing  power 
of  the  dream;  while  to  the  Dionysian  spirit  he 
assigns  the  typical  condition  of  inebriation  or 
Rausch,  the  state  of  pregnant  though  chaotic  sug- 
gestion.    The  dream  and  the  Rausch  —  these  are 


130  Romance  and  Tragedy 

the  two  poles  which  Nietzsche  sets  to  the  axis  of 
human  genius.    For  himself  he  prefers  the  latter. 

In  this  curious  symbolism  or  mythology  Dionysian 
not  only  becomes  synonymous  with  oriental  and 
anti-Christian,  but  it  also  comes  to  stand  for  the 
natural  and  universal,  in  contrast  with  the  rational 
and  intelligible,  which  are  essentially  Apollonian. 
It  is  the  ground  of  nature  —  the  bas-jond  evidently 
—  whereon  all  humanity  can  meet  as  on  the  lap  of 
a  common  mother.  It  is  the  source  of  vital  inspira- 
tions, the  foundation  of  native  originality.  It  is  the 
source  to  which  the  Greek  genius  owed  its  greatness, 
until  those  unconscionable  reasoners  Socrates  and 
Plato  and  Euripides  —  men  of  restraints  and  inhibi- 
tions —  succeeded  in  corrupting  it  with  their  colour- 
less discourse  and  in  introducing  an  Apollonian  de- 
cadence. It  is  true,  the  idea  shifts  somewhat  under 
Nietzche's  hand;  at  some  periods  he  himself  is  more 
Apollonian  than  at  others,  though  on  the  whole  it  is 
the  emerald  effulgence  of  the  orgiastic  divinity  which 
fills  his  pupils  and  colours  his  vision.  In  the  main, 
however,  this  is  the  sense  of  the  distinction,  what- 
ever face  it  may  wear  at  any  particular  moment. 
Nor  is  the  conception  without  ingenuity  —  the  sort 
of  perverted  ingenuity  which  was  a  part  of  Nietzsche 
even  at  his  worst.  It  has  the  advantage  of  serving 
as  a  kind  of  symbolic  or  even  mythic  interpretation 
of  some  of  the  facts  of  common  experience.  There  is 
an  analogy,  even  though  fanciful,  between  intoxi- 
cation and  inspiration  —  a  kind  of  fecund  vagueness 
of  consciousness ;  while  the  paralysis  of  the  usual  in- 
hibitions of  sobriety  produces  a  subjective,  factitious 
sense  of  enlargement  and  liberty.     On  the  other 


Nietzsche  131 

hand,  the  brief  though  vivid  splendour  of  the  dream 
with  its  penetrating  and  haunting  visions  is  no  bad 
image  of  the  formative  phantasy  which  shapes  and 
realizes  the  crowding  and  inchoate  suggestions  of 
the  Rausch.  Such  is  the  upshot  of  Nietzsche's 
dramatic  theories.  And  further,  the  association  of 
the  two  gods  themselves  is  not  without  significance. 
In  particular,  the  figure  of  Dionysus  Zagreus  dilates 
in  Nietzsche's  mind  until  it  has  grown  into  the  an- 
tithesis to  that  other  sacrifice,  the  Nazarene,  whom 
he  distrusted  so  —  both  slain  but  to  what  different 
effect;  the  one  the  afhrmer  and  lover  of  life,  the  other 
its  denier  and  evader. 

In  the  meanwhile,  before  the  opposition  of  Dio- 
nysian  and  Apollonian  had  assumed  quite  these 
proportions,  Nietzsche  was  concerning  himself,  from 
the  very  opening  of  his  second  or  incoherent  period, 
in  testing  the  reigning  morality  by  the  criterion 
afforded  by  his  will  to  power.  In  reality,  I  am  not 
sure  that  his  condemnation  of  morality  was  not 
fairly  complete  before  he  had  definitely  formulated 
the  principle  by  which  to  justify  it.  Certainly,  his 
revolt  against  morality  was  the  more  instinctive 
and  was  undoubtedly  due  to  suspicion  of  it  as  a 
hindrance  to  the  free  expansion  of  life  and  vitality. 
Judged  by  the  will  to  might,  as  Nietzsche  under- 
stood it,  the  current  morality  of  his  day,  as  of  ours, 
has  not  a  leg  to  stand  on.  It  is  benumbing,  depress- 
ing, crippling  —  a  dam  to  the  stream  of  self-expan- 
sion. Like  Plato,  to  whom  it  is  partly  due,  its  last 
word  is  restraint  and  suppression.  It  inculcates 
meekness  and  long  suffering,  pity  and  unselfishness, 
self-denial  and  repression.     Its  code  is  a  series  of 


132  Romance  and  Tragedy 

prohibitions:  its  highest  wisdom  is  to  refrain.  Like 
the  commandments  its  mouth  is  full  of  do  not's.  In 
sum.  it  is  a  morality  of  denial,  a  no-saying,  a  veto 
morality.  It  is  a  morality  for  the  weak  and  dispir- 
ited and  lowly,  in  whom  resignation  and  obedience 
are  the  cardinal  virtues;  not  for  the  strong  and  san- 
guine and  successful,  whose  merit  lies  in  conquest. 
It  is  a  slave  morality  —  and  from  the  slave  Nietzsche 
derives  it  and  by  the  character  of  the  slave  he  ex- 
plains it. 

For  Xietzche's  philosophy  the  point  is  capital. 
Divested  of  his  questionable  etymologies  and 
ethnologies,  the  distinction  between  the  master 
and  the  slave  morality,  upon  which  his  theory7  of 
morals  depends,  is  about  as  follows.  Naturally,  there 
is  nothing  absolute  to  Nietzsche  about  any  moral 
code  or  standard.  He  has  got  rid  of  the  notion  of 
absolute  with  that  of  substance.  A  morality  is  at 
bottom  a  set  of  expedients  originally  invented  for 
the  advantage  or  conveniency  of  its  promoters. 
Such  a  set  of  prescriptions  becomes  petrified  or  crys- 
tallized after  a  while  into  something  fixed  and  ap- 
parently inalterable.  When  so  set.  it  exerts  a 
superstitious  power  over  men's  minds  as  of  some- 
thing sacred  and  irreducible.  It  is  quite  possible, 
however,  to  resolve  these  prescriptions  into  simple 
elements,  to  trace  them  to  their  origin,  and  hence  to 
free  the  mind  of  their  irrational  tyranny.  As  a 
result  of  such  an  investigation,  he  arrives  at  the  con- 
clusion that  the  original  or  primary  morality  was 
that  of  the  masters.  It  was  what  Plato  would  call 
the  expediency  of  the  powerful.  Whatever  was  to 
the  interest  of  the  controlling  or  conquering  class 


Nietzsche  133 

was  approved.  They  were  the  makers  of  values  and 
their  might  was  right.  Naturally  their  own  char- 
acteristics constituted  the  virtues.  Whatever  was 
distinctive  of  them  was  denominated  good;  whatever 
was  distinctive  of  the  lower  or  subjugated  class  or 
caste,  as  looked  down  upon  by  their  superiors,  was 
denominated  bad  {schlecht).  From  the  point  of 
view  of  these  inferiors,  however,  matters  would  ap- 
pear reversed :  the  attributes  of  the  slaves  —  pa- 
tience, gentleness,  forbearance,  humility,  compassion, 
pacifism  —  would  be  regarded  as  good ;  whatever 
distinguished  their  superiors  as  compared  with  them 

—  haughtiness,  severity,  domination,  courage  — 
would  be  regarded  as  evil  (bose).  A  comparison  of 
the  two  sets  of  terms  will  illuminate  the  difference 

—  good  and  bad  as  contrasted  with  good  and  evil. 
And  if  it  is  this  latter  couple  which  belongs  to  our 
moral  vocabulary  to-day,  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  noble  values,  the  values  of  the  masters,  have  been 
dislodged  by  the  mean  and  belittling  values  of  the 
slaves  —  the  manly  and  vigorous  virtues  by  the 
weak  and  degenerate  ones.  This,  according  to 
Nietzsche,  is  the  great  servile  revolution  from  which 
the  world  is  suffering  to-day.  It  is  the  feeble  and 
cowardly  who  have  succeeded  in  imposing  their 
standards  upon  the  strong  and  courageous.  Unable 
to  conquer  the  latter  they  have  taken  their  revenge 
by  infecting  the  victors  with  their  own  disease  until 
society  is  utterly  rotten  and  corrupt.  This  is  the 
first  great  shift  or  transvaluation  of  values,  which 
must  be  reversed  before  we  can  expect  to  regain 
our  health  and  strength. 

In  this  servile  revolt  there  have  been  four  chief 


134  Romance  and  Tragedy 

agents  or  instrumentalities  —  Socratism  and  Plato- 
nism,  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  modern  revolution- 
ism. For  the  authors  of  these  movements  Nietzsche 
is  consistently  merciless  —  Socrates,  Plato,  Jesus, 
St.  Paul,  the  French  Revolution.  They  figure  be- 
tween them  all  that  he  detested  most  —  rationalism 
and  altruism;  that  is,  falsehood  and  infirmity.  What 
he  can  not  forgive  them  is  their  triumph.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  they  have  transformed  morality  in 
in  their  own  sense;  they  have  in  a  manner  proved 
themselves  the  stronger.  They  have  shown  that  they 
too  are  a  force  and  that  there  are  other  forces  than 
the  physical  and  carnal  forces  to  which  Nietzsche 
confines  his  attention.  They  are  a  standing  refuta- 
tion of  his  philosophy  of  the  will  to  power.  Hence 
his  exasperation.  Christianity  and  alcoholism  he 
couples  as  the  two  worst  curses  of  modern  civili- 
zation. And  he  means,  not  the  official,  the  institu- 
tional, the  political  Christianity  of  the  churches, 
but  the  Christian  ethics  —  righteousness  in  our 
sense,  a  sense  which  was  shared  by  Socrates  and  the 
Jews,  and  which  was  taken  up  and  incorporated  in 
the  morality  of  Christianity.  What  an  age  of  sur- 
prises the  nineteenth  century  was!  Here  was 
Nietzsche  belabouring  it  on  the  one  flank  for  its 
pusillanimous  addiction  to  Christianity  and  Tolstoy 
scourging  it  on  the  other  for  its  impious  defection 
from  that  same  Christianity  and  the  poor  old  century 
plodding  along  between  them  amid  the  mingled 
cheers  and  jeers  of  the  bystanders. 

Since  the  current  morality  —  to  continue  our  pur- 
suit of  Nietzsche  —  is  a  slave  morality,  a  morality 
calculated  for  the  comfort  and  security  of  weakness, 


Nietzsche  135 

not  for  the  stimulation  and  encouragement  of 
strength,  a  morality  which  is  virtually  a  denial  of 
the  vital  principle,  the  will  to  power  —  in  view  of 
these  conclusions  it  will  never  be  well  with  the  world 
until  a  readjustment  has  been  made.  For  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  race  there  is  needed  a  rectification  — 
or  in  Nietzsche's  own  words,  a  transvaluation  —  of 
values.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  he  calls  himself  an 
"  immoralist,"  not  that  he  has  no  discipline  to 
recommend  but  that  he  denies  the  validity  of  what 
passes  for  morality  nowadays.  This  morality  may 
be  all  very  well  for  the  lower  classes,  for  the  "  cattle- 
men," who  need  a  "  cattle-morality,"  for  the  Vielzu- 
viele  and  the  Ueberfliissige.  But  before  life  can 
attain  its  fulness,  before  life  can  "  surpass  itself," 
there  must  be  a  counter-revolution  in  favour  of  the 
strong  and  masterful. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  Niezsche's  work  of  con- 
struction actually  begins  —  with  the  introduction  of 
the  superman.  The  superman  may  be  defined  in 
a  general  way  as  the  consummation  of  humanity.  It 
is  not  a  new  type  or  species  produced  by  the  process 
of  evolution  —  with  respect  to  evolution  as  such 
Nietzsche  has  his  reserves;  the  superman  is,  in 
Nietzschean  phraseology,  an  instance  of  life  surpass- 
ing itself.  In  other  words,  he  is  a  being  who  lives 
successfully  in  accordance  with  the  will  to  power. 
Since  society  is  justified,  not  by  its  average, 
but  by  its  exceptions,  he  is  the  acme  of  society 
properly  understood.  He  is  the  glorification  of  con- 
quest, who  in  order  to  triumph  over  others,  has 
learned  to  triumph  over  himself.  He  has  learned 
to  say  "  yes  "  to  life,  to  will  it  with  all  its  pains  and 


136  Romance  and  Tragedy 

horrors.  For  since  it  is  but  weakness  to  revolt  or 
strive  against  a  fate  greater  than  oneself,  the  super- 
man must  school  himself  to  will  with  fate.  Amor 
jati!  Then  what  is,  is  in  accordance  with  his  will 
too.  He  must  will  even  the  everlasting  recurrence 
—  in  Nietzsche's  opinion  the  most  sublime  of  human 
conceptions,  at  once  the  most  awful  and  the  most 
consoling  of  truths  and  the  most  searching  test  of 
the  superman's  superiority. 

Like  most  of  Nietzche's  dogmas  the  everlasting 
recurrence  is  nothing  new.  It  is  to  be  found  in 
antiquity  —  most  modern  ideas  are;  but  what  is 
more  singular,  it  was  put  forward  by  two  French- 
men at  about  the  same  time  with  Nietzsche  —  a 
certain  Blanqui  and  the  well  known  Dr.  Le  Bon. 
Stated  in  so  many  words  it  sounds  almost  puerile. 
For  this  reason  I  had  better  translate  Nietzsche's 
version  of  it: 

"  The  world  of  forces  suffers  no  diminution;  for  other- 
wise it  had  grown  weak  in  the  course  of  infinity, 
and  perished.  The  world  of  forces  suffers  no  pause; 
or  otherwise  the  period  had  been  reached  and  the  clock 
of  being  were  still.  The  world  of  forces  never  attains  an 
equilibrium;  it  has  never  a  moment  of  rest,  its  power 
and  its  movement  are  equally  great  at  every  time.  What- 
ever condition  the  world  can  reach  it  must  have  reached, 
and  not  once  but  often.  So  of  this  instant;  it  was  there 
once  already  and  many  times,  and  will  recur  again; 
and  so  with  the  instant  which  bore  this  and  with  that 
which  is  the  child  of  the  present.  Man!  Thy  whole  life 
is  ever  and  again  reversed  like  an  hourglass  and 
ever  and  again  runs  out  —  a  great  moment  of  time 
between,  until  all  the  conditions  out  of  which  thou  hast 


Nietzsche  137 

come  return  again  in  the  circuit  of  the  world.  And  then 
thou  shall  find  again  every  grief  and  every  joy  and  every 
friend  and  every  foe  and  every  hope  and  every  error 
and  every  blade  of  grass  and  every  ray  of  sunshine  — 
the  whole  concatenation  of  all  things.  This  ring  in  which 
thou  art  a  portion  gleams  ever  again.  And  in  every 
ring  of  human  life  in  general  there  is  always  an  hour 
when  first  to  one,  then  to  many,  then  to  all  the  mightiest 
thought  appears,  that  of  the  everlasting  return  of  all 
things —  that  is  always  for  humanity  the  hour  of 
midday." 

Alone  in  the  Engadine  when  this  stupendous  rev- 
elation struck  him,  Nietzsche  says,  he  was  almost 
prostrated  by  the  insupportable  horror  of  the 
thought.  It  is  characteristic  of  his  scientific  naivete 
that  he  should  have  attached  any  importance  to  such 
a  notion.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  he  makes 
it  the  crucial  test  of  his  man  of  power  —  the  latter's 
ability  to  bear  this  vision  of  disheartening  repetition 
and  to  will  this  too  with  the  rest  of  life  —  yes,  even 
to  rejoice  in  it.  Indeed,  it  is  just  this  ordinance  of 
fate  which  makes  the  superman  necessary  —  for 
Nietzsche  is  not  always  guiltless  of  using  his  con- 
clusions to  prove  his  premises  —  the  superman 
alone  is  capable  of  bearing  up  against  it,  only  the 
superman  can  live  and  flourish  under  such  a  dispen- 
sation. 

Such,  then,  is  the  superman  in  silhouette.  He  is 
the  victor  (the  Sieger)  and  hence  the  maker  of 
values.  He  is  the  affirmer  (the  Ja-sagende)  and 
hence  the  giver  to  humanity  of  significance  and 
direction.    The  inconsistency  of  imparting  direction 


138  Romance  and  Tragedy 

to  that  which  is  ordained  to  a  circular  revolution  or 
of  significance  to  that  which  has  no  aim  or  goal 
seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  Nietzsche.  But  then 
it  would  be  only  too  easy  to  pick  out  contradictions 
among  his  scattered  and  unassembled  statements. 
Nietzsche  does  not  reason,  he  apprehends;  he  does 
not  prove,  he  affirms.  I  have  already  spoken  of  that 
characteristic  of  his  mind  which  seems  to  me  to 
serve  as  a  handy  expression  for  most  of  his  peculiar- 
ities—  its  susceptibility  to  polarization;  and  the 
same  expression  will  apply  as  well  here  to  that  repul- 
sion from  his  own  being  which  resulted  in  the  type 
of  the  superman  as  embodied  in  Zarathustra.  And 
to  those  who  are  satiated  with  the  present  cult  of 
futility,  the  glorification  of  the  amiable,  good- 
natured  weakling,  the  protest  as  such  ought  not  to 
be  wholly  antipathetic. 

It  should  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the 
superman  of  whom  Nietzsche  dreamed  is  a 
creature  of  unbridled  passions  and  uncurbed  im- 
pulses. For  the  perfection  of  such  a  human  being, 
when  once  bred,  there  is  requisite  a  long  and  ardu- 
ous discipline.  He  is  not  a  force  qui  va  like  Victor 
Hugo's  heroes.  Nietzsche,  unscientific  as  he  was 
in  the  sense  of  any  particular  branch  of  science,  had 
not  lived  in  a  scientific  age  wholly  for  nothing.  His 
ideal  is  the  old  ideal  of  violence,  to  be  sure;  but  it 
has  been  modified  by  the  physical  and  biological 
ideas  of  the  time.  The  difference  between  his 
notion  and  Victor  Hugo's  is  measured  by  the  change 
which  the  conception  of  "  nature  "  and  "  natural  " 
has  undergone  in  the  interval.    His  ideal  is  still  that 


Nietzsche  139 

of  the  "  natural  "  man  as  was  Rousseau's,  the  man 
without  a  higher  law  or  will  than  his  own  —  though 
what  concessions  he  has  to  make  to  secure  the  su- 
premacy of  that  will  in  schooling  himself  to  will 
what  is,  I  have  already  pointed  out;  but  that  in 
itself  is  a  kind  of  discipline  undreamed  of  by  Rous- 
seau. It  might  seem,  indeed,  as  though  Nietzsche 
surrendered  the  whole  point  here  —  and  it  must  be 
confessed  that  it  is  harder  to  reconcile  his  construc- 
tive than  his  destructive  inconsistencies;  but  if  he 
does  yield  anything,  he  is  quite  unconscious  of  doing 
so.  To  this  Rousseauist  conception  of  the  "  natural  " 
man,  the  man  of  force  or  violence  or  impulse  of 
1830  or  thereabouts,  he  has  added  the  idea  of  "  effi- 
ciency," a  later  and  "  scientific  "  idea.  In  a  word, 
Nietzsche's  whole  thought  might  be  described  as  the 
marriage  of  the  romanticism  and  the  scientificism  — 
if  I  may  be  allowed  the  word  —  or  the  inhumanism 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Accordingly,  his  idea 
of  power  may  be  defined  as  force  plus  "  efficiency." 
To  the  early  romanticists  "  efficiency  "  was  a  small 
matter  —  in  fact,  an  "  efficient  "  hero  would  hardly 
have  been  a  romantic  one.  To  the  scientific  roman- 
ticists, the  physical  and  biological  romanticists  in 
general  and  Nietzsche  in  particular  it  is  everything. 
And  perhaps  it  is  in  this  manner  that  he  would 
justify  the  amor  jati.  In  any  case,  discipline  is 
necessary  to  this  end;  there  is  no  power,  no  con- 
quest without  it.  His  training  may  be  summed  up 
in  a  precept  from  the  superman's  bible,  Zarathustra: 
"  Be  hard."  Let  the  slaves  and  the  underlings 
retain  the  soft  and  emasculate  morality  of  Chris- 


140  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tianity  and  humanitarianism,  the  superman  must  be 
hard,  not  only  to  others  but  to  himself  —  harder, 
indeed,  to  himself  than  others.  These,  perhaps,  are 
the  two  most  comprehensive  commandments  for  the 
superman:  "  Be  hard  "  and  "  Live  dangerously." 


THE   IDEA    OF    GREEK    TRAGEDY 

'Eyco  he  rkxvrjv  ou  KaXco  6  av  77  aKoyov  irpay^a. 

GORGIAS 

IT  IS  not  infrequently  objected  to  the  practice  of 
generalizing  on  literary  topics  that  it  tends  to 
transform  what  is  properly  a  creature  of  flesh  and 
blood  into  a  lifeless,  if  symmetrical,  figure  of  ab- 
straction. In  some  respects  the  charge  is  just.  To 
suppose  that  Sophocles  wrote  the  Antigone  in  con- 
scious illustration  of  a  dramatic  formula,  would  be 
totally  to  mistake  the  process  of  literary  creation. 
He  wrote  it  because  he  liked  the  subject  and  found 
it  suggestive:  as  we  say  nowadays,  he  saw  some- 
thing in  it.  But  even  in  this  case  it  is  perfectly 
legitimate  to  analyse  and  define  the  kind  of  thing 
that  appealed  to  him  and  the  kind  of  thing  that 
he  succeeded  in  making  out  of  it  as  far  as  his 
impressions  and  methods  are  uniform.  In  other 
words,  it  is  possible  to  determine  the  character  of  his 
work  as  a  whole  even  at  the  risk  of  neglecting  the 
specific  play  of  feature  and  circumstance  which 
lends  every  individual  performance  its  own  peculiar 
vivacity.  And  the  same  sort  of  treatment  is  equally 
feasible  with  the  body  of  Greek  tragedy  —  or  for 
that  matter,  with  tragedy  considered  as  a  universal 
genre. 

And  further,  even  though  the  Greeks,  like  other 
tragedians,  worked  freely,  according  to  their  own 

141 


142  Romance  and  Tragedy 

genius,  in  the  stuff  that  pleased  them,  without  ref- 
erence to  rule  or  prescription;  even  so,  it  is  none  the 
less  certain  that  they  proceeded  in  accordance  with 
certain  general  ideas  and  habits  of  thought.  At  all 
events,  in  order  to  understand  what  they  have  done, 
we  should  naturally  have  to  take  it  up  in  some  gen- 
eral expression,  which  at  most  would  represent,  not 
necessarily  their  manner  of  creating  it  or  our  manner 
of  enjoying  it,  but  merely  our  manner  of  disposing 
of  it.  No  one  pretends,  I  suppose,  that  the  physical 
or  mechanical  principles  which  help  us  to  make 
sense  of  the  rainbow,  offer  any  adequate  equivalent 
for  our  joy  in  it,  or  even  that  it  was  ever  made  in 
deliberate  demonstration  of  such  principles.  And 
while  I  should  hardly  care  to  institute  a  comparison 
between  scientific  and  critical  generalization,  there 
is  sufficient  analogy  between  the  two  cases  to  illus- 
trate the  fact  that  as  the  sole  condition  of  dealing 
intelligently  with  a  number  of  details,  we  are  obliged 
to  gather  them  into  our  minds  in  a  broad  and  system- 
atic way.  And  while,  again,  I  would  not  be  so  rash 
as  to  say  that  any  dramatist  ever  harboured  any 
such  views  as  I  am  about  to  utter  concerning  Greek 
drama;  yet  I  do  believe  that  some  such  conception 
—  if  not  mine,  then  that  of  another  more  happy  — 
is  involved  in  that  drama  and  is  a  fair  expression 
of  the  manner  in  which  it  arranges  itself,  when  it 
does  arrange  itself,  in  our  heads.  For  after  all  it 
is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  creation  of  a  play 
and  its  comprehension  are  two  very  different  things. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  am  as  far  from  pretending 
to  say  anything  novel  as  I  am  from  expressing  the 
the  visions  and  raptures  of  genius.     Not  only  has 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  143 

Aristotle  occupied  this  ground  before  me;  but  he 
has  in  some  sense  told  the  whole  story  once  for  all. 
Not  that  every  just  remark,  which  has  since  been 
made  on  the  subject,  derives  directly  from  Aristotle. 
But  while  it  would  appear  ridiculous  to  father  all 
subsequent  ideas  upon  him,  yet  it  is  true  that 
whatever  is  justly  said  in  this  matter  does  array 
itself  naturally  under  his  authority,  almost  as  an  ex- 
planation or  extension  of  his  teaching.  If  I  can  only 
classify  the  facts,  therefore,  from  a  single  point  of 
view  so  that  they  will  all  hang  together  and  take 
on  that  air  of  intellectual  consistency  which  results 
from  the  possibility  of  considering  a  number  of 
particulars  in  one  light  and  under  one  angle,  I 
shall  think  my  purpose  satisfactorily  accomplished. 
The  aim  of  criticism  must  always  consist,  in  the 
first  instance,  in  making  its  subject  intelligible  by 
reducing  it  to  a  single  set  of  relationships. 


Like  every  other  work  of  literature  a  tragedy  is 
the  product  of  two  factors.  There  is,  first,  the  crude 
stuff  or  substance,  fact  or  invention  —  the  "  myth  " 
or  "  fable,"  as  it  used  to  be  called,  the  "  story," 
as  it  is  called  nowadays  —  which  serves  as  the  found- 
ation of  the  action;  and  second,  the  handling  or 
treatment,  the  "  art,"  which  gives  this  raw  material 
its  literary  value.  It  is  only  by  a  kind  of  license 
that  we  can  speak  of  an  event,  whether  real  or 
imaginary,  as  a  tragedy.  In  such  a  case  we  are 
merely   availing   ourselves    of   a   handy   theatrical 


144  Romance  and  Tragedy 

figure.  Literally,  we  are  justified  in  saying  at  most 
that  such  an  occurrence  might  possibly  yield  a  trag- 
edy if  properly  worked  up  and  presented.  Even 
in  the  common  manner  of  speaking  the  force  of 
the  figure  depends  on  a  recognition  of  the  necessity 
of  dramatic  elaboration  for  genuinely  tragic  effect. 
In  other  words,  a  tragedy  is  not  a  work  of  nature  but 
of  art. 

Like  the  treatment,  however,  the  myth  or  story 
itself,  upon  which  the  tragedy  is  founded,  should 
have  a  special  character  of  its  own.  It  is  probably 
a  vague  recognition  of  the  circumstance  that  every 
transaction  indifferently  is  not  proper  material  for 
tragic  handling,  which  confines  the  popular  appli- 
cation of  the  term  to  certain  occurrences  in  real 
life,  however  capricious  and  inexact  this  application 
of  the  word  is  likely  to  be.  In  short,  tragedy  is  not 
wholly  an  affair  of  manner  any  more  than  it  is 
wholly  an  affair  of  matter.  The  substance  must 
be  suitable;  and  it  can  be  so  only  when  it  is  of  a  sort 
to  violate  our  feeling  of  moral  congruity  or  fitness. 
That  is  to  say,  the  tragic  story  or  fable  should  in- 
volve a  discrepancy  between  our  sense  of  fact,  as 
illustrated  in  the  incidents  of  the  action,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other,  our  conception  of  justice 
and  right  reason.  And  it  is  just  this  disheartening 
consciousness  of  inconsistency,  implicit  in  the  per- 
ception of  the  dramatic  data,  as  between  our  knowl- 
edge of  things  as  they  are  or  seem  to  be  and  our 
vision  of  them  as  they  should  be,  which  it  is  one  of 
the  duties  of  the  tragic  dramatist  to  reinforce  and 
deepen  by  his  treatment. 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem  something  of  a  paradox 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  145 

to  rest  tragedy  upon  the  same  general  basis,  the 
appreciation  of  incongruity,  as  that  upon  which  it 
has  become  usual  to  rest  comedy.  And  yet  it  has 
been  observed  again  and  again  that  as  far  as  the 
mere  dramatic  substratum  is  concerned,  there  is  no 
essential  difference  between  tragedy  and  comedy: 
the  same  premises  may  serve  for  either  according 
to  circumstances.  As  Vinet,  for  one,  has  pointed 
out,  the  subject  of  Mithridate  is  identical  with  that 
of  L'Avare  —  the  fifth  scene  of  the  third  act  in  the 
former  play  utilizing  exactly  the  same  situation  as 
the  third  scene  of  the  fourth  act  in  the  latter;  while 
between  Mahomet  and  Tartuffc,  and  Andromaque 
and  Ricochets,  to  mention  only  obvious  instances, 
there  is  an  unmistakable  likeness  of  the  same  kind. 
And  yet  how  different  the  effect!  The  truth  is, 
incongruity  may  stir  very  different  emotions  under 
different  circumstances. 

In  the  case  of  comedy  it  is  the  sense  of  decorum 
and  convention,  rather  than  any  graver  feeling, 
which  is  offended.  A  violation  of  the  proprieties, 
an  inconsistency  of  character,  a  contrariety  of  cir- 
cumstances —  of  such  is  the  fabric  of  comedy.  In 
spite  of  its  tragic  possibilities  Le  Misanthrope 
arouses,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  profound  distrust,  it 
stirs  no  serious  misgivings.  That  a  prig  of  Alceste's 
stamp  should  so  far  belie  his  professions  as  to  fall 
in  love  with  a  trifling  flirt  like  Celemene,  arouses, 
much  the  same  feeling,  under  Moliere's  management, 
as  that  a  man  in  irreproachable  evening  clothes,  to 
borrow  an  example  from  Professor  Sully,  should 
slip  and  fall  into  the  mud.  To  the  intelligent  ob- 
server the  one  experience  is,  of  course,  much  more 


146  Romance  and  Tragedy 

interesting  than  the  other.  The  latter  is  wholly 
superficial  and  fortuitous.  The  former  is  rooted  in 
human  nature  and  furnishes  a  better  pasturage  for 
that  sort  of  intellectual  curiosity  and  amusement 
which  it  is  the  business  of  the  comic  poet  to  elicit 
from  his  themes  as  it  is  the  business  of  the  tragic 
poet  to  elicit  from  his  the  motifs  proper  to  his  own 
genre. 

In  the  case  of  tragedy,  on  the  contrary,  the  incon- 
gruity is  such  as  to  shock  profoundly  the  moral  pre- 
possessions of  the  race  —  to  shake,  if  not  to  unsettle, 
confidence  in  the  moral  order,  in  the  moral  reality 
of  the  universe.  The  sacrifice  of  a  girl  so  innocent 
and  ingenuous  as  Iphigenia  to  the  indirections  of  her 
father's  ambitious  policy  or  that  of  a  woman  so 
elevated  and  disinterested  as  Antigone  to  state's 
reason  and  municipal  convenience,  is  in  itself  a 
direct  attack  upon  the  observer's  faith  in  a  supreme 
equity,  in  a  just  apportionment  of  human  lots.  Nor 
is  it  otherwise  with  Mithridate  as  compared  with 
L'Avare.  The  spectacle  of  a  ravenously  avaricious 
character  like  Harpagon  in  the  throes  of  a  passion 
so  extravagant  as  love,  presents  an  extremely  curious 
and  amusing  case  of  ethical  casuistry  —  nothing 
more;  while  the  exposure  of  Monime  in  her  maiden 
decorum  to  the  jealous  inquisition  of  her  tigerish 
master  is  enough  to  confound  belief  in  the  equit- 
able regulation  of  mortal  affairs. 

It  is  this  sort  of  thing  that  I  should  like  to  call 
the  tragic  qualm  —  this  feeling  of  insecurity  and 
confusion,  as  it  were  a  sort  of  moral  dizziness  and 
nausea,  due  to  the  vivid  realization,  in  the  dramatic 
fable,  of  a  suspicion  which  is  always  lurking  un- 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  147 

comfortably  near  the  threshold  of  consciousness, 
that  the  world  is  somehow  out  of  plumb.  Herein 
lies  the  genuine  "  clash  "  of  tragedy,  as  it  has  been 
called  —  not  in  a  mere  collision  of  persons  or  inter- 
ests or  even  of  ideas  within  the  confines  of  the  play 
itself,  but  rather  in  the  contradiction  life  is  perpetu- 
ally opposing  to  our  human  values  and  standards. 

To  be  sure,  our  sensibility  for  this  sort  of  thing 
is  rather  blunt  at  present.  This  is  not  a  tragic  age. 
Nor  is  it  essentially  a  moral  one.  But  for  all  that 
there  are  times  when  the  tragic  qualm,  inherent 
as  it  is  in  the  nature  of  things  rather  than  of  art, 
obtrudes  itself  irresistibly.  The  wanton  assassina- 
tion of  the  most  inoffensive  of  our  presidents  is  a 
case  in  point  —  as  is  the  senseless  obliteration  of 
an  entire  population  by  earthquake,  volcanic  up- 
heaval, or  other  cataclysm.  I  grant  that  even  these 
tremendous  catastrophes  are  beginning  to  lose  their 
terrors  for  the  popular  imagination  in  the  rapid 
extension  of  a  civilization  preponderantly  material. 
But  at  the  same  time,  though  such  matters  are  not 
of  themselves  proper  for  tragedy  for  a  reason  that 
I  shall  assign  in  a  few  minutes,  yet  they  do  still  stir 
in  thoughtful  natures  the  kind  of  feeling  peculiar 
to  the  tragic  fact  as  such;  they  raise  again  the  hor- 
rifying old  distrust  of  nature  and  her  dealings  with 
her  creature.  Like  every  lapse  of  reason,  like  every 
intrusion  or  irruption  of  the  irrational  or  the  unin- 
telligible into  the  sphere  of  human  interests,  they 
threaten  again  the  security  of  man's  dearest  illu- 
sions, they  trouble  his  spirit  and  fill  him  with  name- 
less apprehensions  for  the  sanity  and  good  faith  of 
that  order  in  which  humanity  with  its  quivering 


148  Romance  and  Tragedy 

and  importunate  conscience  is  helplessly  and  irre- 
vocably involved.  For  after  all  the  tragic  qualm  is 
perhaps  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  sudden  and 
appalling  recognition  of  our  desperate  plight  in  a 
universe  apparently  indiscriminate  of  good  and  evil 
as  of  happiness  and  misery. 

Without  the  tragic  qualm,  then,  in  the  dramatic 
data  there  is  no  tragedy.  But  this  is  not  enough; 
it  is  but  preliminary  —  in  Plato's  words,  tcl  irpd 
rpaycodlas.  It  is  necessary  that  the  qualm  should 
be  allayed,  that  the  quarrel  between  the  certainties 
of  experience  and  the  exactions  of  conscience  should 
be  composed,  and  that  confidence  should  be  restored. 
In  addition  to  making  sure  of  the  emotions  proper 
to  his  stuff  in  itself,  the  poet  must  also  manage  in 
such  a  way  as  to  answer  the  question  mutely  pro- 
pounded by  his  fable:  if  such  things  can  be,  what 
becomes  of  the  law  of  eternal  righteousness  as  given 
in  the  heart  of  man?  Such  is  the  question  which  the 
drama,  as  "  the  imitation  of  an  action,"  forces  re- 
lentlessly upon  the  attention  of  the  audience.  And 
the  whole  function  of  tragedy,  as  a  literary  genre, 
is  to  resolve  this  doubt,  in  one  way  or  another, 
through  the  medium  of  the  action  but  of  the  action 
as  a  dramatic,  not  as  an  actual,  performance.  Other- 
wise, there  is  no  art  —  nothing  but  a  dull  dead  stere- 
otype of  reality  with  all  its  contradictions,  incoher- 
ences, and  inconsequences  —  and  with  all  its 
resultant  incredibility.  Senseless  assassination  or 
aimless  annihilation  may  indeed  present  a  problem, 
but  the  problem  is  insoluble.  And  where  there  is 
no  solution,  either  by  fault  of  the  circumstances  or 
by  fault  of  the  poet,  there  is  no  genuine  tragedy. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  149 

If  I  may  venture  for  a  little  while  into  the  thicket 
of  critical  exegesis,  this  or  something  very  like  it 
seems  to  me  to  be  what  Aristotle  had  in  mind  in 
speaking  of  the  "  purgation  of  the  passions  "  as  the 
end  of  tragic  poetry.  The  eventual  relaxation  of 
the  emotions  of  pity  and  horror,  which  were  char- 
acteristic of  the  tragic  qualm  as  it  affected  the  sensi- 
bilities of  the  Greek  by  reason  of  certain  conditions 
which  I  shall  have  the  temerity  to  discuss  before 
long  —  the  eventual  relaxation  and  alleviation  of 
these  emotions  by  some  adjustment  or  other,  after 
their  violent  excitation  by  the  representation  of  the 
action,  appears  to  satisfy  the  Aristotelian  definition 
of  tragedy,  as  5i'  eKeov  kglI  cf)6(3ov  irepalvovaa  rr}v 
r&v  TOiovTOiv  Tradrj/jLCLTOiv  Kadapacv  as  accomplish- 
ing through  pity  and  horror  the  purgation  of  these 
selfsame  passions.  But  in  any  case  —  and  this  is  the 
point  after  all  —  what  is  indisputable  is  the  sharp 
distinction  drawn  by  the  Poetics  between  the  myth 
and  its  handling,  between  the  action  as  an  imitation 
and  an  initiation  —  or  in  other  words,  between  life 
and  literature.  And  in  the  light  of  the  distinction 
it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  Aristotle  regarded  as  in- 
dispensable some  such  final  accommodation  as  I  have 
tried  to  indicate.  Without  some  such  reconciliation 
of  experience  with  conscience,  without  some  adjust- 
ment of  the  course  of  events  to  the  principles  of 
human  nature  he  could  not  have  conceived  of  a  trag- 
edy in  the  proper  sense. 

It  is  through  this  solution,  as  I  have  called  it 
in  customary  fashion,  that  tragedy  acquires  its  sig- 
nificance, as  it  acquires  its  poignant  sense  of  reality 
through  its  presentation  of  the  tragic  problem  im- 


150  Romance  and  Tragedy 

plicit  in  its  imitation  of  an  action.  While  it  is  by  the 
latter  avenue  that  life  enters  tragedy,  ideas  enter 
it  through  the  former.  In  this  manner  verisimilitude 
on  the  one  part  and  moral  consistency  on  the  other 
become  necessary  attributes  of  the  tragic  poem. 
But  even  in  the  first  case,  in  the  case  of  the  fable 
itself,  it  is  as  much  the  dramatist's  vision  which  is 
involved  as  his  observation.  The  success  of  his 
action,  even  as  imitation,  depends  mainly  upon  his 
eye  for  the  problem.  What  affects  the  audience  is 
his  fidelity,  not  so  much  to  a  certain  order  of  phe- 
nomena, as  to  a  certain  order  of  emotions.  In  a 
word,  the  verisimilitude  of  his  drama,  and  hence  its 
reality,  is  measured,  in  the  last  resort,  not  by  the 
exactitude  with  which  he  is  seen  to  reproduce  the 
spectators'  own  sensations,  but  by  the  justice  with 
which  he  is  felt  to  have  voiced  the  tragic  qualm. 


11 

Of  the  technical  elements  of  tragedy  in  general  I 
have  said  nothing.  I  am  concerned  with  what  may 
be  called  its  intellectual  bases  alone.  I  have  assumed 
the  dramatic  genre  with  all  its  appurtenances  and 
and  properties.  And  I  have  taken  for  granted  as 
sufficiently  obvious  of  itself  that  the  rational  prem- 
ises of  tragedy  are  expressed  and  to  a  certain  extent 
conceived  in  terms  of  sensation  and  emotion.  The 
kind  of  story  in  which  the  problem  is  sensibly  em- 
bodied and  through  which  the  tragic  qualm  is  emo- 
tionally communicated,  together  with  the  manner 
of  treatment  whereby  the  solution  is  intimated,  will 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  151 

depend  upon  the  character  of  the  drama  and  its 
inspiration.  Naturally,  too,  the  specific  feelings  to 
which  the  tragic  qualm  is  determined,  will  vary  with 
the  dramatist's  sense  of  the  tragic  problem  —  as  will 
the  pacification  with  his  convictions  religious  or 
otherwise  —  as  these  may  be  affected  by  his  natural 
disposition  and  the  civilization  in  which  he  finds 
himself.  If  the  tragic  problem  of  Shakespeare  and 
the  Elizabethans  is  compared  with  that  of  Sophocles 
and  the  Athenians,  it  will  be  found  to  arise  from 
quite  another  notion  of  the  fatal  incongruities  of  life 
and  to  be  differently  constituted  with  respect  to  its 
emotional  notes,  while  the  solutions  tacitly  proposed 
by  the  two  dramas  will  naturally  diverge  to  an  equal 
extent. 

With  Shakespeare  the  tragic  dissonance  or 
"  clash  "  would  seem  to  engage  as  between  man's 
possibilities  or  pretensions  and  his  fate.  The  incom- 
patibility of  his  desires  and  aspirations,  which  are 
illimitable,  with  the  conditions  which  actually  dis- 
pose of  him  —  mean,  trivial,  absurd,  belittling  as 
they  may  be,  but  always  at  odds  with  his  higher 
nature  and  impulses  and  frequently  ruinous  of  his 
life  and  happiness  —  something  like  this  would  ap- 
pear to  be  what  moved  Shakespeare  most  in  his 
graver  moods.  The  contrast  between  what  humanity 
might  or  should  be  and  what  as  a  matter  of  fact  it 
may  become  by  the  accidents  of  existence  —  herein 
lies  the  discord  at  the  root  of  his  tragedy.  A  being 
of  inexhaustible  capacity,  noble  in  reason,  infinite 
in  faculty,  godlike  in  apprehension,  reduced  to  a 
mere  quintessence  of  dust  —  a  Hamlet  whose  world 
is  out  of  point  or  an  Othello  "  fall'n  in  the  practice 


152  Romance  and  Tragedy 

of  a  damned  slave,"  such  is  the  Shakespearean  pro- 
tagonist. 

"  This  man  so  great  that  all  that  is,  is  his, 
Oh,  what  a  trifle  and  poor  thing  he  is!  " 


In  short,  Shakespeare's  tragedy,  like  romantic 
tragedy  in  general,  is  a  tragedy  of  circumstances; 
hence  the  "  low  "  and  "  comic  "  elements  with  which 
pseudo-classicism  used  to  reproach  it.  To  regard 
a  business  like  the  graveyard  scene  in  Hamlet  as  a 
side-issue  or  a  sop  to  the  groundlings,  as  apologetic 
criticism  was  once  fond  of  doing,  is  to  miss  the  point. 
There  may  be  some  excuse  for  disliking  it  when  done, 
but  Shakespeare  knew  what  he  was  about  when  he 
did  it.  In  its  violent  affront  to  the  ideal  dignity  of 
Hamlet's  situation  at  the  moment  when  he  is  totter- 
ing precariously  on  the  edge  of  his  own  grave  as  of 
Ophelia's,  in  its  fantastic  contradiction  of  the  Ham- 
let of  abstraction  by  the  Hamlet  of  fatuity  it  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  Shakespearean  tragedy. 
The  objection  that  such  a  scene  is  out  of 
keeping  with  the  seriousness  of  the  emergency 
is  true  enough;  but  it  is  equally  pointless,  for  the 
tragedy  consists  in  just  this  affront  to  human  dig- 
nity, this  outrage  to  the  sacredness  of  the  individual. 
That  such  an  objection  should  ever  have  been  made, 
argues  a  gross  misunderstanding,  not  only  of  the 
manner  in  which  he  conceived  the  tragic  problem, 
but  also  of  the  nature  of  his  tragic  irony,  so  different 
from  Sophocles'.  "  That  is  the  glory  of  Shakes- 
peare," Tennyson  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  that  he 
can  give  you  the  incongruity  of  things."    Even  about 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  153 

his  comic  characters  in  their  more  sober  aspects 
hangs  the  atmosphere  of  fortuitous  calamity.  It  is 
what  gives  Falstaff  his  grip  upon  our  sympathies; 
he  ought,  it  seems,  to  be  so  much  nobler  than  he  is. 
For  Shakespeare's  mixture  of  comic  and  tragic  is 
not  confined  to  a  mere  intermingling  of  scenes  of  one 
sort  with  those  of  another;  it  resides  in  a  kind  of 
duplicity  of  conception,  which  is,  perhaps,  humour- 
ous rather  than  comic.  Just  as  the  lighter  characters 
like  Falstaff  may  catch  a  reflection  of  pathos  from 
being  in  some  manner  the  victims  of  untoward  cir- 
cumstances, so  his  tragic  characters  too  may  be 
slightly  ridiculous  for  the  same  reason,  like  Othello 
gulping  Iago's  innuendoes  or  Macbeth  gaping  at  the 
witches.  At  all  events,  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
his  tragic  heroes,  for  all  their  wilfulness  and  violence, 
are  always  a  little  pitiable  as  well  as  pathetic,  like 
poor  old  Lear.  About  them  all  is  a  little  something 
of  Coleridge  —  one  reason,  perhaps,  that  he  is  able 
to  speak  of  them  with  so  much  intelligence  and 
sympathy.  Such  is,  no  doubt,  the  unavoidable 
weakness  of  a  drama  in  which  fatality  has  been 
displaced  by  necessity.  If  there  is  a  principle  pre- 
siding over  the  course  of  Shakespeare's  action  it  is 
the  law  of  causation,  in  accordance  with  which  the 
quarry  is  finally  run  down  by  a  pack  of  conse- 
quences, more  or  less  incidental,  with  whose  incep- 
tion his  own  character  has  little  or  nothing  to  do, 
however  it  may  appear,  as  the  only  constant  and 
predicable  element,  to  determine  the  outcome,  very 
much  as  the  duration  of  the  hunt  might  be  said, 
regardless  of  the  hounds,  to  depend  upon  the  endur- 
ance and  cunning  of  the  fox.    After  all  the  problem 


154  Romance  and  Tragedy 

set  by  Shakespeare  is  simply  how  a  man  of  such  and 
such  possibilities  could  go  to  the  ground.  The  an- 
swer consists  in  tracing  the  circumstantial  conspir- 
acy, the  causal  succession  by  which  he  has  been 
brought  to  such  a  pass,  together  with  its  effect  upon 
his  character.  Transfer  Hamlet  and  Othello,  and 
the  tragedy  becomes  unthinkable.  How  long  would 
it  have  taken  the  former  to  unmask  Iago  or  the  latter 
to  settle  with  Claudius? 

Hence  the  curious  result,  as  compared  with  the 
Greek,  that  whatever  their  fortunes,  Shakespeare's 
protagonists  are  morally  accountable  only  for  their 
intentions.  It  is  impossible,  of  course,  to  deny  that 
Hamlet  pays  the  penalty  of  his  acts,  such  as  they 
are,  in  the  sense  that  he  endures  the  event;  but  he 
is  in  no  wise  answerable  to  the  audience  for  the  pre- 
dicament in  which  he  finds  himself,  as  is,  for 
example,  the  Hippolytus  of  Euripides.  On  the  con- 
trary, not  only  does  Macbeth  suffer  the  consequences 
of  his  conduct,  he  participates  in  their  odium  as 
well,  on  the  strength  of  the  malevolence  of  his 
motives.  The  latter  is  adjudged  a  criminal,  the 
former  is  not.  At  the  same  time,  there  is  a  striking 
want  of  concurrence  between  verdict  and  sentence. 
Inoffensive  as  he  is,  Hamlet  comes  off  no  better  than 
Macbeth.  The  tragedy  is  the  same  in  both  cases  — 
the  ruin  of  a  promising  career.  In  the  one  instance 
justice  is  felt  to  have  been  done;  in  the  other  not. 
Why,  then,  the  identical  issue?  In  short,  for  the 
tragic  problem  implicit  in  his  representation  of  life 
Shakespeare  has  no  moral  solution.  He  seems  to 
say:  Such  is  the  way  of  the  world;  to  be  sure,  it 
offends  your  sense  of  fitness  that  humanity  should 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  155 

be  liable  to  these  wretched  contingencies,  but  what 
would  you  have?    Life 

"  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing." 

In  default  of  a  final  impression  of  moral  consistency 
as  between  the  hero's  deserts  and  his  apportionment, 
the  consternation  of  the  spectators  is  composed  by 
a  feeling  which  is  left  with  them  of  the  sympathetic 
superiority  of  the  victim  over  the  forces  to  which 
he  succumbs.  In  spite  of  his  insufficiency  it  is 
impossible  not  to  rate  Hamlet  or  Lear  above  the 
whole  conspiracy  to  which  he  falls  a  victim.  In 
this  way  the  tragic  qualm,  as  I  have  called  it,  is 
allayed  after  a  fashion;  the  audience  is  reconciled 
to  the  catastrophe  —  otherwise  there  would  be  no 
tragic  effect  at  all.  Such  a  conclusion,  however,  is 
purely  sentimental  and  lenitive;  there  is  no  reas- 
sertion  of  the  moral  order,  no  catharsis  of  the 
passions  to  which  the  qualm  is  due.  It  is  not  by  his 
solution,  to  speak  exactly,  that  Shakespeare  is  great. 
Perhaps  the  kind  of  incongruity  on  which  he  based 
his  drama  is  incapable  of  moral  reconciliation.  At 
all  events,  it  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  the  terrific 
vividness  with  which  he  pictures  the  plight  of 
humanity  in  a  world  of  unscrupulous  eventualities 
and  draws  its  consequences  for  the  character  of  the 
individual  that  his  greatness  is  due.  Hence  the  in- 
dividuality of  his  drama  and  its  title  to  the  common 
designation,  tragedy  of  character. 

Such,  as  I  conceive  the  matter,  are  the  funda- 


156  Romance  and  Tragedy 

mental  ideas  of  Shakespearean  tragedy,  which  is  in 
most  respects  a  fair  type  of  romantic  tragedy  in 
general.  By  comparison,  the  problem  of  Greek  trag- 
edy has  to  do  with  the  effect  of  an  action,  as  such, 
in  promoting  human  happiness  or  misery;  while 
the  solution  seeks  to  justify  the  issue  by  attaching 
to  the  action  concerned  a  corresponding  moral  qual- 
ity of  good  or  evil.  It  is  not  a  concern  for  happiness 
in  itself  which  differentiates  the  Greek  tragedy  from 
the  Shakespearean;  on  the  whole,  it  is  rather  a  con- 
cern for  the  correlation  of  happiness  and  righteous- 
ness. But  as  far  as  the  representation  itself  goes, 
all  tragedy,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  alike  eudsemonistic 
in  referring  immediately  to  the  instinct  of  happiness 
as  sole  umpire  of  the  denouement  or  metabasis.  If 
life  were  suddenly  to  be  conceived  as  a  discipline 
of  suffering,  a  school  of  character  alone,  without 
reference  to  the  welfare  of  the  individual,  our  trag- 
edy would  have  to  be  recast.  I  do  not  see  how 
Lear  or  (Edipus  could  be  regarded,  on  such  a  sup- 
position, as  a  tragic  figure.  Indeed,  in  the  (Edipus 
Coloneus,  where  Sophocles  has  taken  this  view  to 
some  extent  and  has  modified  the  postulates  of  trag- 
edy in  some  measure  to  suit  it,  the  impression 
produced  is  not  wholly  a  tragic  one.  The  shock  to 
the  sensibilities  upon  which  depends  the  effect  of 
the  action  in  tragedy,  as  distinguished  from  that  of 
its  resolution,  consists  capitally  in  seeing  humanity 
fail,  by  some  outrageous  contretemps  or  other,  of 
the  well  being  to  which  it  instinctively  thinks  itself 
entitled.  And  the  peculiar  feeling  or  quality  of 
feeling  which  makes  the  qualm  of  one  tragedy  differ 
from  that  of  another  is  due,  not  to  a  care  or  a  neglect 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  157 

of  such  a  natural  expectation,  but  to  the  particular 
manner  in  which  it  is  raised  to  be  disappointed  — 
that  is,  finally  to  the  character  of  the  two  parties  to 
the  collision,  that  which  serves  to  raise  the  hope 
or  expectation  and  that  which  serves  to  disap- 
point it. 

Now  in  Shakespeare  this  collision  or  clash  was 
seen  to  grow  out  of  an  inconsistency  between  the 
fairness  of  human  promise  or  appearance  and  the 
dubiousness  of  mortal  performance  —  or  in  terms 
of  feeling,  between  the  expectations  raised  by  the 
hero's  personality  and  the  disappointment  caused 
by  his  subsequent  career.  In  Greek  tragedy,  on  the 
other  hand,  preoccupied  as  it  is  with  the  ends  of 
action  and  its  relation  to  prosperity,  the  collision 
originates  in  a  discrepancy  between  the  hero's  con- 
duct and  its  consequences  —  between  the  favourable 
expectations  raised  by  his  action  and  the  deplorable 
results  that  actually  ensue  from  it,  as  when  an  act 
calculated  to  ensure  success  is  in  reality  productive 
of  calamity  But  of  the  probable  outcome  of  an 
act  there  is  morally  only  one  prognostic  —  the 
intention  or  purpose  of  its  author.  Acts  of  which 
happiness  may  consistently  be  predicted,  whose 
termination  ought  to  be  prosperous,  are  those  whose 
intentions  are  good  —  or  at  least  innocent.  When 
such  an  act,  deserving  in  itself  of  approval,  turns 
out  disastrously,  like  Antigone's  celebration  of  her 
brother's  funeral  rites,  there  is  bound  to  follow  a 
strong  feeling  of  amazement  and  dismay.  The 
conscience  is  deeply  shocked;  and  there  arises  that 
peculiar  sense  of  vertiginous  insecurity  which  I  have 
called  for  convenience  the  tragic  qualm. 


158  Romance  and  Tragedy 

In  this  connection  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  in 
Greek  you  are  always  pretty  sure  what  the  protag- 
onist is  going  to  do.  He  seldom  or  never  dis- 
appoints you;  whereas  in  Shakespeare  the  protag- 
onist's behaviour  is  always  more  or  less  doubtful 
until  it  is  settled  forever  by  the  inertia  of  the  action. 
That  Orestes  will  kill  his  mother,  is  certain  from  the 
first;  he  has  come  to  do  so  and  do  so  he  will  —  he 
acts  consistently  in  the  spirit  of  his  intention:  what 
is  uncertain  is  the  consequence  of  his  doing  so. 
Whether  Hamlet  will  kill  the  king  or  not,  is  always 
pretty  much  a  matter  of  conjecture  before  he  has 
done  so.  In  fact  that  is  just  the  question.  In  the 
one  case  it  is  Hamlet's  character  which  is  on  trial; 
in  the  other  it  is  Orestes'  act. 

From  this  shift  of  dramatic  emphasis  has  resulted 
a  difference  in  the  treatment  of  character  which  is 
no  less  significant  of  the  romantic  tragedy  as  com- 
pared with  the  Greek.  While  the  Greek  protagonist 
is  calculated  solely  with  reference  to  the  action, 
whose  moral  character  is  reflected  upon  him;  the 
Shakespearean  has  developed  a  character  of  his  own 
which  is  partly  implicated  in  the  action  but  is  also 
partly  independent  of  it  and  uncommitted  to  it.  The 
former  is  an  agency,  not  an  end  in  himself.  It  is 
not  he  to  whom  the  action  is  indebted  for  its  main 
interest  and  its  peculiar  effects,  but  contrariwise. 
In  consequence,  he  exists  only  in  and  for  the  play; 
or  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  there  is  no  more 
of  him  than  is  necessary  to  motive  the  drama, 
with  which  he  is  virtually  coterminous.  On  this 
account  he  has  simplicity,  breadth,  and  integrity  — 
he  possesses  a  general,  abstract,  and  typical  value 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  159 

—  to  which  his  modern  rival  can  make  no  preten- 
sion. He  represents  the  fates  and  liabilities  of 
human  life  rather  than  the  varieties  and  variations 
of  human  nature. 

The  Shakespearean  character,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  a  personality  more  or  less  inviolable  and  senti- 
mentally superior  to  the  mere  circumstances  of  his 
lot,  appears  to  live  with  a  larger  life  than  that  of  the 
action,  with  which  his  character  is  only  partially 
identified.  Whoever  dreams  of  measuring  Hamlet 
or  Othello  or  Lear  —  or  even  Macbeth  for  that 
matter  —  solely  by  what  he  does?  Such  is  the 
variety,  richness,  and  complexity  —  such  is  the  eth- 
ical interest  of  his  character  that  it  is  impossible 
to  confound  him  with  his  fate,  even  while  one  be- 
wails the  pity  of  it.  In  retaining  his  apartness  and 
distinction  he  preserves  a  kind  of  saving  grace  or 
eminence  in  his  downfall  which  makes  it  dramati- 
cally endurable.  He  remains  uncompromised  be- 
cause he  seems  so  much  more  important  than  the 
catastrophe,  or  indeed,  than  the  whole  play  itself. 
He  stretches  away,  as  it  were,  indefinitely  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  drama  in  which  he  figures  — 
often  meanly  enough  in  comparison  with  the  im- 
pression of  his  psychological  significance.  There 
is  hardly  one  of  all  the  company  who  does  not  occa- 
sionally let  slip  some  evidence  to  a  trait  of  character 
which  is  not  involved  in  the  piece  or  required  by  it 

—  some  hint  or  reminiscence  as  though  of  a  previous 
state  of  existence.  Indeed,  so  complex  is  their  con- 
sciousness that  it  occasionally  splits  up  or  divides 
against  itself  to  the  detriment  of  the  dramatic  action. 
It  is  as  much  Hamlet's  dissension  with  himself  as 


160  Romance  and  Tragedy 

anything  else  which  embarrasses  the  tragedy.  For 
these  reasons  it  is  possible  to  talk  —  yes,  and  to 
dispute  so  much  about  any  of  Shakespeare's  main 
personages:  there  appears  to  be  so  much  more  of 
them  than  the  action  is  adequate  to  account  for 
that  the  remainder,  the  extra-mural  portion,  is  an 
inexhaustible  subject  of  speculation  and  conjecture. 
Hence  the  fascination  of  what  may  be  called  the  pri- 
vate character  of  his  dramatis  personal,  which 
manifests  itself  in  innumerable  odd  ways  —  in  biog- 
raphies of  his  heroines'  girlhood,  in  discussions  of 
Hamlet's  whereabouts  and  occupations  before  the 
curtain  went  up,  even  in  reference  to  Lear's  and 
Cordelia's  compensations  in  another  world. 

That  the  stage  has  gained  in  a  way  by  this  treat- 
ment of  character  is  undeniable.  But  what  it  has 
gained  in  one  way  it  has  lost  in  another.  Though 
it  has  gained  in  curiousness,  in  variety,  or  what 
we  like  to  call  human  interest;  it  has  as  surely  lost 
in  dramatic  and  literary  consistency.  That  the 
characters  should  outgrow  the  action  and  cease  to 
be  solely  the  creatures  and  servants  of  the  drama, 
is  impossible  without  impairing  the  accurate  ad- 
justment of  parts  and  functions,  the  nice  application 
of  means  to  ends  upon  which  depends  the  perfection 
of  art  in  general  and  of  dramatic  art  in  particular  — 
without  introducing  an  element  of  excess  or  super- 
fluity, a  principle  of  disorder  which  tends  to  warp 
and  sprain  the  play.  The  fact  is  that  the  Shakes- 
pearean dramatis  personal  are  too  big  for  the  mimic 
world  which  they  feign  to  inhabit;  they  are  them- 
selves realities  masquerading  in  a  world  of  fiction; 
they  belong,  not  to  the  stage,  but  to  existence.    Dare 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  161 

I  say  so  —  they  are  too  natural,  particularly  the 
women?  I  confess  that  to  me  at  least  it  seems  at 
times  a  little  incongruous,  even  a  little  grotesque  to 
watch  these  intensely  animated  characters,  complex 
with  all  the  complexity  of  life,  gesticulating,  grim- 
acing, frowning,  smiling,  running  the  gamut  of  a 
thousand  expressions  and  inflections,  bustling  about 
with  all  the  irresponsible  vivacity  of  nature,  "  in 
a  fiction,  in  a  dream  of  passion,"  amid  a  factitious 
and  highly  artificial  scene  clapped  together  trans- 
parently enough  out  of  a  few  bits  of  painted  can- 
vas, a  rickety  slide  or  two,  and  a  set  of  flimsy  hang- 
ings, the  whole  bounded  by  an  arc  of  garish 
footlights  and  a  row  of  staring  spectators.  On  the 
contrary,  the  Greek  actor  in  his  buskins,  his  mask, 
his  robe  and  trappings,  with  his  restrained  gestures 
and  intonations,  may  seem  a  singular  figure  when 
deprived  of  his  appropriate  accompaniments.  But 
put  him  in  his  place,  in  the  midst  of  a  scene  and  an 
action  carefully  insulated,  to  say  the  least,  from 
actuality;  and  he  ceases  to  be  grotesque  or  incon- 
gruous: he  and  his  surroundings  are  of  a  sort. 

In  one  particular,  however  —  in  the  nature  of 
the  actions  imitated  and  in  the  fidelity  of  the  imita- 
tion it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Greek  tragedy 
bears  no  little  likeness  to  the  Elizabethan  —  quite 
enough,  indeed,  to  justify  the  numerous  parallels  that 
have  been  drawn  between  them  and  even  to  support 
the  contention  that  Shakespeare's  is  the  likest  of 
all  tragedy  to  the  Athenian.  Nor  is  the  similarity  so 
very  extraordinary  after  all.  There  is  naturally  a 
kind  of  family  resemblance  among  all  the  members 
of  a  genre.    From  this  particular  point  of  view  life 


1 62  Romance  and  Tragedy 

is  bound  to  present  pretty  much  the  same  aspect 
whoever  views  it.  The  frightful  rivalry  and  compe- 
tition, the  monstrous  waste  of  life,  the  atrocious  ex- 
pense of  suffering,  which  are  the  very  conditions 
of  existence  on  the  planet  —  from  such  sources  all 
tragedy  indifferently  must  draw  its  materials,  which 
are  much  more  elemental  and  simple  than  the  com- 
paratively artificial  and  complex  interests  of  comedy. 
But  it  is  true  that  the  Greeks  and  Shakespeare  are 
alike  in  looking  at  these  things  far  more  piercingly 
and  nakedly  than  the  poets  of  any  other  nation. 
They  see  the  facts  more  nearly  and  distinctly 
through  fewer  veils  and  conventions.  And  there 
is,  in  consequence,  a  kind  of  unflinching  realism 
about  their  representation  of  the  tragic  data  which 
carries  them  a  long  way  in  company.  Parricide, 
matricide,  suicide,  infanticide,  rape,  incest,  insan- 
ity, sacrilege  —  these  formed  the  stock  in  trade  of 
the  one  as  of  the  other.  But  such  a  likeness  is 
more  or  less  superficial,  touching  the  matter  rather 
than  the  spirit.  It  is  the  resolution,  the  accommoda- 
tion between  experience  and  conscience,  which  is 
vital.  And  here,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  the 
Athenian  takes  leave  of  the  Elizabethan.  While 
the  latter  was  content  to  exhibit  "  the  weary  weight 
of  all  this  unintelligible  world  "  with  hardly  more 
than  a  sentimental  palliative  for  its  atrocities,  the 
former  boldly  attacked  the  problem  involved  in  the 
frustration  of  human  happiness,  and  by  reconciling 
the  discrepancy  at  its  root,  succeeded  in  allaying 
the  spectators'  apprehensions  for  the  miscarriage 
of  justice,  at  the  same  time  relieving  and  relaxing 
the  passions  excited  by  such  a  spectacle  in  a  manner 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  163 

to  suggest  the  Aristotelian  metaphor  of  a  moral 
catharsis. 

Specifically,  his  problem,  as  he  saw  the  riddle  of 
the  universe  reflected  in  the  legendary  and  heroic 
mischances  with  which  he  worked,  was  this:  why 
should  an  act  which  is  performed  with  virtuous  or 
blameless  intent  and  which  is  to  all  appearance  good 
and  meritorious  in  itself,  work  irreparable  mischief 
for  its  author,  In  order  to  answer  this  question  he 
undertook  to  show,  or  rather  to  convey  the  impres- 
sion, that  such  an  act,  whatever  its  motives,  was  in 
reality  committed  in  violation  of  moral  law  and  that 
so  far  from  being  innocent  or  even  indifferent,  it 
was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  subversive  of  order  and 
discipline.  In  other  words,  it  was  not  merely  in- 
expedient but  wicked  and  on  that  account  properly 
liable  to  disaster;  while  its  perpetrator  himself  was 
not  merely  unlucky  or  unhandy,  but  criminal  as 
well  and  therefore  obnoxious  to  correction  and 
punishment. 

To  take  Sophocles,  the  maturest  and  clearest  ex- 
pression of  Greek  tragedy,  as  an  example  —  his 
whole  theatre  seems  to  presuppose  some  universal 
and  abstract  principle  of  law  and  order,  &gt  aypaic- 
ra  Ka(T(l>a\rj  Oew  vbni/jia  presiding  over  existence -a 
kind  of  moral  police,  to  put  it  crudely  —  which  pro- 
vided automatically  and  of  itself  for  the  regulation 
of  human  affairs  and  for  the  execution  and  removal 
of  disturbers,  who,  if  suffered  with  impunity,  would 
unsettle  the  equilibrium  of  earthly  things.  Any 
deed,  done  in  contravention  of  this  principle  or  law, 
however  innocent  might  be  its  motives,  was  essen- 
tially criminal,  as  involving  in  fact  a  breach  of  the 


164  Romance  and  Tragedy 

moral  peace.  Ignorance  itself,  like  rectitude  of  in- 
tention, constituted  no  defense,  though  dramatically 
they  both  served  to  recommend  the  offender  to  the 
sympathies  of  the  beholders  —  in  short,  to  qualify 
him  a  tragic  character;  for  otherwise  his  fate  would 
have  no  particular  interest  —  it  would  be  a  clear 
case  of  retribution,  raising  no  doubt  and  occasion- 
ing no  qualm.  As  for  the  remoter  mystery  between 
the  law  and  the  culprit's  conscience  —  with  this 
Sophocles  has  little  or  nothing  to  do;  he  is  content 
to  leave  such  matters,  as  too  high  for  him,  between 
the  knees  of  the  gods.  Only  once,  in  CEdipus  Co- 
loneus,  he  attempts  something  like  a  vindication 
of  their  purposes.  But  as  a  general  thing,  what  he 
is  concerned  for  —  and  in  this  particular  his  pre- 
occupation is  sufficiently  unlike  ours  to  make  its 
appreciation  difficult  —  is  to  demonstrate  the  moral 
consistency  of  life  as  against  a  purely  casual  or  me- 
chanical coincidence  and  to  assign  to  men's  actions 
specifically  human  and  intelligible  values  of  good 
and  evil  in  place  of  the  neutral  and  noncommital 
attributions  of  right  and  wrong  to  their  good  or  ill 
success  — 

Siv  vbjj.0L  xpo/ceivrcu 
v\J/Liro8es,  ovpaviav 
8l'  aldkpa  Tenvwdevres  &v  "OXvjxttos 
irarrip  povos,  oi'8e  viv 
dvara  0i'cis  apepwv 

eTLKTtP,  oi'8e  p.i]iroTe  A&0a  KaraKOLpaari, 
fxeyas  h>  tovtols  deos,  oi'8e  y^pauKti. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  165 

Nor  was  this  interpretation  due  to  a  confusion 
of  nomenclature,  as  has  often  been  assumed.  Soph- 
ocles was  no  dupe  of  a  vocabulary.  Rather,  if 
there  were  such  a  confusion  of  vocabulary  at  all, 
it  was  a  concomitant  result,  with  this  interpreta- 
tion, of  the  spirit  of  those  who  used  the  language. 
The  conviction  of  the  correlation  of  misery  with 
wickedness,  of  prosperity  with  righteousness,  to- 
gether with  what  we  should  call  the  indifference 
to  motives,  which  inspired  the  solution  of  Greek 
tragedy,  was  not  confined  to  Sophocles  and  his 
fellow  playwrights.  It  suffused  the  consciousness 
of  the  Greeks.  The  happy  man  was  the  good  man; 
or  as  we  say,  for  the  idea  is  not  without  modern 
echoes,  he  was  the  man  who  had  done  well.  In 
fact,  so  thoroughly  was  the  identification  ingrained 
in  the  popular  mind,  that  there  was  a  general  preju- 
dice against  misfortune  as  in  itself  an  impairment 
of  character.  But  while  the  Greek  temper  was 
consistently  moral,  it  was  consistently  intellectual 
too.  Not  only  were  the  unhappy  obviously  wrong; 
but  since  no  one  acted  ill  knowingly,  all  wrong  doing 
was  finally  a  form  of  ignorance  or  misjudgment  — 
that  is,  an  error  of  some  sort.  Ignorance  too 
was  criminal.  And  while  this  conception  of  conduct 
was  not  pushed  relentlessly  to  its  logical  conclusion 
—  for  Aristotle  seems  to  discriminate  in  debarring 
from  tragedy  what  can  be  only  the  man  of  evil  im- 
pulses —  yet  it  did  tend  to  turn  the  Greek's  attention 
from  the  motive-grubbing  with  which  we  are 
familiar  and  fix  it  upon  the  act  and  its  consequences, 
which  as  a  matter  of  fact  furnish  the  only  practical 


1 66  Romance  and  Tragedy 

means    of    estimating    the    moral    significance    of 
character. 

As  a  matter  of  curiosity,  suppose  we  spend  a 
few  minutes  in  pushing  Sophocles'  conception  to 
its  logical  conclusion.  We  must  then  arrive  at  some 
such  conception  as  the  following.  In  case  there 
are  acts  which  tend  to  violate  or  do  actually  violate 
the  moral  order,  there  must  be  a  cosmic  will  or  in- 
tention, since  a  moral  order  implies  a  corresponding 
scheme  or  plan.  But  what  is  this  moral  sense  or 
purpose,  this  cosmic  will?  It  can  not  be  necessity, 
for  that  frequently  resists  or  contravenes  the  moral 
order,  if  actuality  is  to  be  taken  as  the  index  of  ne- 
cessity. Nor  can  it  be  a  mere  ascription  or  attribu- 
tion on  the  part  of  our  own  moral  character,  for  that 
would  have  no  power  to  enforce  its  decrees.  Nor  can 
it  be  identified  with  the  will  of  Zeus  —  certainly  not 
the  ^Eschylean  Zeus,  nor  even  of  an  educated 
and  properly  advised  Zeus  such  as  is  anticipated 
in  the  Prometheus  Bound.  Is  it,  then,  simply  in- 
herent in  the  constitution  of  things?  And  if  so, 
wholly  material  after  all?  For  how  did  the  universe 
get  to  be  a  moral  affair?  And  here,  I  suppose,  we 
reach  the  term  of  speculation.  The  cosmos  was  to 
Sophocles  a  moral  cosmos,  however  it  came  to  be  so, 
just  as  ours  is  a  mechanical  one  though  we  can  not 
explain  how  or  why,  and  in  fact,  consider  the  query 
impertinent  —  partly,  no  doubt,  because  we  can  not 
answer  it.  The  force,  however,  which  insures  and 
sustains  this  moral  order  of  Sophocles'  is  fate.  In 
the  dramatic  economy  of  the  tragedian  it  is  fate 
which  puts  the  moral  order  through. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  167 


in 

With  these  general  considerations  in  mind  it  is 
possible  to  dispose  more  or  less  systematically  and 
intelligibly  of  several  details  which  are  usually 
handled  in  a  rather  empirical  and  disjointed  fash- 
ion as  notations  of  fact  rather  than  as  consequences 
of  a  principle. 

In  the  first  place,  it  ought  to  be  clear  from  this 
point  of  view  why  Greek  tragedy  should  manifest 
itself  so  frequently  under  a  sort  of  typic  form  which 
has  been  described  as  a  conflict  of  duties.  In  the 
light  of  the  recent  discussion  it  is  obvious  that 
through  some  such  opposition  as  this  the  particular 
problem  with  which  this  tragedy  has  to  do,  is  at  once 
set  out  in  the  strongest  possible  light  and  receives 
the  most  satisfactory  and  convincing  solution.  A 
protagonist,  acting,  as  in  the  Antigone,  with  com- 
plete faith  in  the  sacredness  of  his  undertaking 
only  to  discover  in  the  end  that  so  far  from  acquit- 
ting himself  of  his  obligations  he  has  actually  in- 
curred the  penalty  of  an  offense  as  serious  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  as  the  debt  which  he  has 
endeavoured  to  meet  —  such  a  character  affords  in 
his  own  person  the  most  striking  contrast  between 
anticipation  and  fulfilment  and  at  the  same  time 
suggests  the  most  reasonable  explanation  of  his  dis- 
grace. As  his  motives  are  the  highest  conceivable 
on  the  one  part,  so  is  the  tragic  anomaly  of  his  fate 
the  most  shocking  and  bewildering;  and  as  his  trans- 
gression is  patent  and  undeniable  on  the  other  part, 
so  is  the  rehabilitation  of  the  moral  order  equally 


1 68  Romance  and  Tragedy 

certain  and  reassuring.  In  such  wise  the  double 
requirement  of  Greek  tragedy  with  respect  to  qualm 
and  catharsis  finds  complete  and  ready  satisfaction. 
In  this  respect  nothing  could  be  more  striking 
than  the  contrast  with  modern  or  Shakespearean 
tragedy.  It  is  almost  an  unexceptional  rule  that 
the  Greek  protagonist  ruins  himself  in  the  discharge 
of  what  he  believes  to  be  a  duty  —  and  not  always 
an  agreeable  one  at  that;  whereas  the  modern  pro- 
tagonist falls  in  the  indulgence  of  his  own  desires. 
To  the  one  fatality  appears  in  the  guise  of  an  obli- 
gation; to  the  other  in  that  of  a  temptation.  (Edipus, 
Antigone,  Orestes  —  it  is  not  so  much  that  they  are 
following  their  own  inclinations  —  or  even  what 
seems  to  them  individually  to  be  right  and  just, 
but  what  the  audience  too  would  unanimously  recog- 
nize as  such.  And  it  is  precisely  this  —  the  convic- 
tion of  guilt,  brought  home  to  protagonist  and 
audience  under  such  circumstances,  which  makes 
the  qualm  of  Greek  tragedy.  Indeed,  I  sometimes 
wonder  whether  tragedy  in  the  highest  sense  can 
exist  without  such  conviction  of  guilt,  notwith- 
standing that  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  conviction 
of  innocence  in  like  circumstances  which  makes  the 
poignancy  of  modern  tragedy.  But  not  to  quarrel 
over  degrees  and  to  accept  the  facts  as  they  are, 
the  difference  is  real  and  significant.  If  the  Greek 
protagonist  is  tragic  by  the  conviction  of  guilt, 
where  the  modern  is  tragic  by  the  conviction  of 
innocence,  it  is  that  the  former  is  led,  by  his  de-. 
votion  to  what  he  thinks  a  just  obligation  or  claim 
against  his  conscience,  to  incur  the  violation  of 
some  other  engagement  equally  sacred  and  binding. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  169 

At  the  same  time,  simple  as  the  matter  seems 
when  viewed  in  its  proper  connection,  it  is  to  this 
very  source  that  much  of  the  misunderstanding  of 
Greek  tragedy  must  be  referred.  Not  infrequently 
has  it  happened  that  one  of  these  obligations  or  the 
other  has  lost  its  authority  for  the  modern  con- 
science with  a  resultant  falsification  of  feeling  for 
the  situation.  In  a  humanitarian  age  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Prometheus'  offense  against  the  celestial 
ordinance  should  appear  a  trifle  as  compared  with 
his  services  to  mankind  and  that  he  himself  should 
have  come  to  be  a  purely  sympathetic  and  romantic 
character,  such  as  Shelley  has  done  his  best  to  famil- 
iarize us  with.  With  a  weakening  of  the  ancient 
civic  sense,  too,  something  of  the  same  sort  has 
happened  to  Antigone.  But  nevertheless  it  was 
originally  this  strict  antinomy  of  approximately 
equal  duties  which  afforded  Greek  tragedy  one  of 
the  fairest  opportunities  for  the  production  of  its 
own  peculiar  effects,  not  the  least  notable  of  which 
was  the  characteristic  duplicity  of  feeling  it  aroused 
for  the  protagonist. 

This  impression,  composed  of  the  two  emotions, 
pity  and  horror,  by  which  Aristotle  defines  tragedy 
—  just  these  two  and  no  others  —  is  to  be  accounted 
for  in  the  same  way  and  by  the  same  order  of  con- 
siderations as  before.  Not  that  Greek  tragedy  might 
not  produce  other  emotions  too  —  as  a  matter  of 
of  fact  Aristotle  himself  has  arranged  for  others; 
but  such  others  are  adscititious  and  incidental.  Pity 
and  horror  alone  are  inherent  in  the  idea  of  the 
species  and  essential  to  its  formula.  Since  the  action 
of  the  protagonist  itself  bears  a  double  face  or  inter- 


170  Romance  and  Tragedy 

pretation,  in  qualm  and  catharsis,  the  emotions  of 
the  audience  are  twofold  also.  In  as  far  as  it  is 
well  intended  and  directed  to  an  end  commendable 
enough  in  itself,  it  arouses  pity  for  its  devoted 
author  upon  whose  head  it  recoils  with  such  fatal 
effect;  while  in  as  far  as  it  is  mischievous  in  fact, 
as  it  violates  the  celestial  canon  and  jeopardizes 
the  established  order,  it  must  needs  arouse  an  equal 
horror  for  the  rash  and  impious  agitator  who  has 
ventured  to  trouble  the  tranquillity  of  men  and  gods. 
For  the  blind  and  passive  sufferer  of  a  fate  so  dis- 
maying as  that  required  to  produce  the  tragic  qualm, 
pity  is  the  only  possible  emotion;  as  is  horror  for  the 
malefactor  convicted  of  a  felony  sufficiently  mon- 
strous to  justify  the  judgment  which  overtakes  him 
and  so  to  work  the  revulsion  of  feeling  necessary 
to  the  catharsis. 

I  do  not  wish  to  insist  upon  the  moral  import 
of  tragedy  unduly:  I  know  how  reproachful  such 
remarks  must  seem  to  my  own  generation.  At  the 
same  time  I  can  not  leave  this  topic  without  a 
protest.  While  I  do  not  think  that  tragedy  ought 
to  preach  a  sermon  or  read  a  lesson,  it  does  seem  to 
me  that  nothing  can  be  more  preposterous  than 
the  contention  that  Aristotle,  in  defining  the  genre 
by  the  emotions  of  pity  and  horror,  meant  to  imply 
that  its  being  is  exclusively  aesthetic,  in  the  modern 
acceptation  of  the  term,  and  devoid  entirely  of 
moral  purpose  or  concern.  As  though  pity  and 
horror  were  necessarily  immoral  or  amoral  emo- 
tions! As  though  it  were  not  a  kind  of  misnomer 
to  speak  of  them  as  aesthetic  emotions  at  all!  That 
there  are  emotions  which  are  exclusively  aesthetic 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  171 

even  in  the  straightened  significance  now  given  to 
the  word,  I  have  no  doubt.  But  no  one  whose  judg- 
ment has  not  been  warped  by  the  perversions  of  a 
latter-day  criticism  would  dream  of  classing  pity 
and  horror  among  them.  For  what  is  there  so  likely 
to  move  the  latter  as  the  spectacle  of  blind  and  in- 
fatuate iniquity;  so  likely  to  move  the  former  as  the 
spectacle  of  sudden  and  staggering  adversity?  The 
conflict  of  good  and  evil,  I  believe,  is  still,  for  all 
our  sophistication,  the  surest  and  deepest  of  all 
emotional  appeals.  And  in  view  of  the  facts  I  can 
conceive  nothing  more  impudent  than  the  pre- 
tension to  range  Aristotle  among  the  partisans  of 
such  a  doctrine  as  I'art  pour  I'art,  because  he  has 
formulated  tragedy  in  terms  of  the  very  emotions 
which  are  most  closely  identified  with  our  moral 
perceptions. 

At  the  same  time,  pertinent  as  is  his  notation  of 
that  drama  with  which  he  was  acquainted,  it  is  a 
mistake  to  assume  that  his  definition  is  true  for 
tragedy  in  general  or  romantic  tragedy  in  particular. 
Since  neither  problem  nor  solution  is  identical,  as 
I  have  tried  to  show,  it  follows  that  the  character- 
istic sentiment  of  the  latter  will  be  differently  con- 
stituted with  respect  to  its  emotional  notes.  I 
do  not  mean  to  deny  that  pity  and  horror  are  in 
some  sense  elicited  by  every  tragedy.  They  are 
both  present  to  some  extent  and  in  some  manner 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  genre.  The  apparent 
moral  obliquity  of  the  catastrophe,  which  is  the 
motive  of  the  qualm  —  itself,  as  I  have  tried  to 
show,  a  constant  factor  —  is  bound  to  raise  a  kind 
of  horror,  as  also  a  kind  of  pity  for  the  luckless 


172  Romance  and  Tragedy 

actor.  But  these  feelings  are  quite  different  in 
timbre  from  the  passions  to  which  the  Greek  play 
is  conditioned  by  its  peculiar  interpretation  of  tragic 
actuality.  They  have  not  the  same  purity  or  the 
same  consistency;  they  are  not  in  a  fixed  and  defi- 
nite ratio  decisive  of  the  character  of  the  drama; 
they  are  variable  and  indeterminate.  As  a  rule,  the 
modern  protagonist  is  either  a  pathetic  character, 
like  Othello,  or  an  antipathetic  one,  like  Macbeth. 
Otherwise,  in  default  of  a  solution  authoritatively 
moral,  we  should  be  unable  to  bear  his  fate,  to 
which  we  are  reconciled,  as  I  have  already  sug- 
gested, in  the  one  case  by  an  impression  of  his  senti- 
mental superiority  to  his  situation,  in  the  other  case 
by  a  conviction  of  the  poetical  justice  of  his  down- 
fall. The  active  principle  in  the  first  case  is  sym- 
pathy; in  the  second,  disapprobation.  But  sym- 
pathy is  not  identical  with  pity,  or  disapprobation 
with  horror.  And  even  when  our  feelings  for  the 
modern  hero  are  mixed,  these  are,  on  the  whole,  the 
sentiments  between  which  we  are  divided.  What 
pity  and  horror  we  feel  are  caught  up  and  engaged 
with  these  more  or  less  loosely. 

For  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  the  subject,  how- 
ever, this  is  hardly  the  place.  All  I  wish  to  do  here, 
is  to  point  out  that  these  two  passions,  pity  and 
horror,  are  critical  of  Greek  tragedy  alone;  and 
though  they  may  enter  into  the  general  description 
of  any  tragedy,  yet  it  is  misleading  to  use  them  as 
a  universal  definition  of  the  whole  genre  without 
reference  to  specific  versions  of  the  tragic  paradox 
and  specific  expedients  for  its  accommodation.  For 
as  opinion  changes  with  regard  to  the  tragical  contin- 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  173 

gencies  of  life  —  what  they  are  and  how  humanity  is 
to  be  reconciled  to  their  existence;  so  must  the 
feelings  and  sentiments  voiced  by  the  drama  change 
also,  and  along  with  them  the  attitude  toward  the 
tragic  character,  whose  qualifications  will  obviously 
be  controlled  by  these  very  conditions.  So  it  is 
with  the  modern  protagonist.  And  it  is  by  the 
same  reasoning  that  Aristotle's  discrimination 
against  certain  types  as  compared  with  certain 
others,  is  to  be  explained  and  justified. 

The  main  difficulty  with  Aristotle's  doctrine  of 
characters  seems  due  to  the  fact  that  it  makes  no 
provision  for  the  prevailing  pathetic  or  prevailing 
antipathetic  protagonist  of  later  tragedy  —  in  par- 
ticular, and  the  saying  has  been  thought  a  hard  one, 
it  disqualifies  Macbeth  and  Richard  III.  But  the 
fact  is  that  such  a  type  is  not  Greek;  it  does  not 
conform  to  the  double  role  for  which  the  Greek 
protagonist  was  cast.  While  it  is  possible,  of  course, 
to  rationalize  the  ruin  of  a  thorough-paced  villain 
by  the  law  which  he  has  violated,  yet  his  downfall 
causes  no  dismay  and  inflicts  no  pang;  it  is  just  what 
ought  to  happen.  Hence  it  offers  no  moral  problem; 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Greek  there  was  nothing  tragic 
about  it.  It  might  be  calamitous  for  the  villain; 
but  objectively,  for  the  audience  it  was  a  source  of 
unalloyed  satisfaction,  just  as  his  career  was  an 
occasion  of  unmigitated  disgust.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  virtuous  or  pathetic  character  is  unfitted 
to  the  part  for  a  contrary  reason.  While  the  sight 
of  such  a  person  suffering  an  untoward  fate,  may 
indeed  appear  sufficiently  enigmatical  to  trouble 
the  spectator  and  awaken  his  suspicions,  yet  the 


174  Romance  and  Tragedy 

very  nature  of  the  case  precludes  the  possibility  of 
a  moral  settlement.  In  the  adversity  of  the  just 
there  is  neither  reason  nor  consistency.  As  Aristotle 
says,  it  is  simply  shocking.  And  the  difference  of 
our  own  feeling  in  this  respect  serves  to  measure  the 
interval  between  the  two  tragedies.  On  this  account 
the  only  possible  protagonist  for  the  Athenian  was 
the  sort  that  we  have  had  in  mind  all  along  —  the 
fallible  character,  neither  wholly  good  nor  wholly 
bad,  but  liable  to  error.  As  such  he  is  subject  to 
pity  by  his  infirmity  and  to  horror  by  his  iniquity  — 
he  is  amenable  equally  to  the  requirements  of 
problem  and  solution. 

In  addition  to  these  features  of  Greek  tragedy, 
which  may  be  regarded  as  primary  inasmuch  as  they 
derive  immediately  from  its  postulates  and  are  nec- 
essary corollaries  of  its  definition,  there  are  others 
mentioned  by  Aristotle  as  incidental  and  ancillary. 
Their  presence  is  the  test  of  a  complex,  as  distin- 
guished from  a  simple  action,  which  hinges  solely 
upon  a  metabasis  or  reverse  of  fortune,  while  the 
former  may  also  include  a  peripeteia,  an  agnition, 
and  a  sensation  (Tados)-1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  then, 
these  secondary  characters  are  merely  special  de- 
vices for  reinforcing  the  emotional  impression  of 
qualm  and  catharsis,  which,  as  he  observes,  is  more 
impressive  when  the  incidents  of  the  drama  occur 

1  Though  Aristotle  fails  to  mention  irados  with  7repi7rereia  and 
avayvoipLais  as  one  of  the  differentiae  of  complex  tragedy,  he 
discusses  it  immediately  in  connection  with  these  other  two  as 
a  third  part  of  the  nvdos.  At  the  same  time  the  Prometheus 
Bound  is  opened  by  a  ttclOo*,  if  indeed  the  whole  play  is  not  one 
prolonged  irddos.  Since  the  whole  distinction  is  of  no  great 
importance  in  this  connection,  there  is  no  particular  use  in 
discussing  here. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  175 

contrary  to  expectation,  and  still  more  so  when  they 
occur  by  reason  of  one  another.1  So  a  peripeteia 
is  defined  as  an  effect  by  which  an  antecedent  pro- 
duces, not  the  consequence  expected,  but  one  entirely 
unlooked  for  and  yet  necessary  and  intelligible.  In 
much  the  same  way  an  agnition  is  the  recognition 
by  a  character  of  some  person  or  object  of  whose 
identity  he  was  at  first  unaware.  As  such  an  effect 
is  likely  to  cause  a  revulsion  of  feeling  and  a  change 
of  intention  on  the  part  of  the  character  concerned, 
it  frequently  though  not  invariably  involves  a  peri- 
peteia. A  sensation,  as  I  have  ventured  to  translate 
the  term  it  ados,  is  a  particularly  harrowing  inci- 
dent, which  instead  of  being  reported  by  messenger 
or  otherwise,  is  enacted  under  the  eyes  of  the  spec- 
tators. As  conducive  of  surprise  and  suspense, 
intensity  and  immediacy,  these  effects  may  be  looked 
upon  as  elements  of  plot  in  the  present  connotation 
of  the  word.  To  be  sure,  they  want  the  elaboration 
of  the  modern  intrigue,  where  the  dramatic  action 
has  come  to  be  developed  chiefly  in  the  sense  of 
the  "  interesting  "  as  the  dramatis  personal  chiefly 
in  the  sense  of  the  "  characteristic."  But  though 
they  have  remained  subject  to  the  primary  uses  of 
tragedy  in  the  enforcement  of  problem  and  solution, 
yet  their  very  presence  should  be  a  warning  against 

1  SlaWrjXa.  Hardly  by  cause  and  effect  in  the  modern  con- 
notation, as  the  case  of  Mitys'  statue  at  Argos  proves.  The 
connection  in  Aristotle's  mind,  I  venture  to  think,  was  moral, 
not  physical.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  Aristotle 
was  without  the  notion  of  causal  sequence  and  that  he  may 
not  have  had  it  in  the  corner  of  his  eye  in  this  case.  But  I 
conceive  that  his  idea  of  cause  in  this  instance  would  have  in- 
cluded that  of  reason  also;  it  would  have  involved  an  answer 
to  the  question  why  as  well  as  to  the  question  how. 


176  Romance  and  Tragedy 

a  not  uncommon  manner  of  speaking  as  though 
Greek  tragedy  were  deficient  somehow  in  dramatic 
action  and  were  largely  an  affair  of  declamation  and 
recitation. 

Such  an  insinuation  is  founded  only  in  a  serious 
confusion.  It  is  not  unusual  nowadays  to  talk  as 
though  a  lively  and  bustling  stage  or  a  picturesque 
and  striking  tableau  were  all-sufficient  evidences  of 
dramatic  quality.  But  if  movement  and  stir,  spec- 
tacle and  panorama  were  indeed  dramatic,  then 
would  vaudeville  be  justified  of  its  triumph.  Under 
the  circumstances  it  is  hardly  otiose  to  remark  that 
for  genuine  drama  it  is  hardly  enough  to  set  the  char- 
acters' legs  in  motion;  their  passions  must  be 
aroused  as  well.  It  is  not  so  much  motion  as  emotion 
that  makes  drama.  Mrs.  Siddons  is  said  to  have 
had  a  way  of  pronouncing  Lear's  curse,  while  holding 
her  arms  rigidly  at  her  sides,  with  an  effect  that  was 
terrible  beyond  gesticulation.  Only  as  the  outward 
act  gives  rise  to  feeling  or  expresses  it,  does  the  act 
itself  become  dramatic.  It  is  not  mere  action  but 
significant  action  that  counts.  Nothing  could  be 
busier  than  a  scene  of  Victor  Hugo's.  It  is  full  of 
sound  and  fury,  commotion  and  vociferation;  and 
yet  when  you  come  to  look  inside  for  the  internal 
drama  which  all  this  outward  show  and  circumstance 
should  body  forth,  what  hollowness  and  vacuity 
you  find !  While  as  for  the  vaunted  violences  of  the 
romantic  stage  they  too  miss  the  mark  as  often  as 
not.  Critics  have  wasted  their  ingenuity  in  trying 
to  defend  the  sanguinary  ending  of  King  Lear.  In 
spite  of  the  spiritual  interest  and  importance  of 
the  murder  which  closes  Othello,  it  is  a  fair  question 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  177 

whether  Shakespeare  has  not  overreached  himself 
in  strangling  Desdemona  in  public.  In  all  such  cases 
the  mind  is  so  shaken  or  distracted  by  the  physical 
act  as  to  be  incapable  of  attending  to  its  ethical 
import.  The  impression,  so  far  from  being  en- 
hanced, is  blunted  by  the  theatrical  exaggeration. 

On  the  other  hand,  such  a  poem  as  Goethe's 
Iphigenie  goes  to  the  opposite  extreme.  Admirable 
as  it  is  in  its  own  way,  it  is  lacking  both  in  dramatic 
action  and  in  theatrical  activity.  It  has  nobility; 
but  it  is  the  nobility  of  reflection,  not  of  passion. 
No  wonder  that  Goethe  himself  could  never  see  it 
performed  with  patience.  And  yet  tragedy,  while 
representing  passion,  does  not  present  it  for  its  own 
sake.  Tragedy  implies  an  aim,  an  end  or  purpose  to 
be  accomplished  —  a  labour,  ttovos,  an  exertion. 
There  is  a  fatal  necessity  constraining  the  dramatis 
personal  to  act  and  causing  an  interplay  of  motives, 
a  fluctuation  of  emotion.  To  use  the  phraseology 
of  the  day,  a  play  is  not  static  but  dynamic.  It 
involves  will,  volition;  it  is  not  a  mere  state  of  feel- 
ing or  even  a  succession  of  such  states  —  but  rather 
an  agitation  of  spirit.  Hence  the  necessity  of  a 
metabasis,  as  Aristotle  calls  it,  or  reverse  of  fortune. 
And  it  is  just  the  point  of  drama  that  this  revulsion 
of  feeling  should  be  capable  of  visible  translation. 
Of  all  modern  dramatists  it  is  Shakespeare  who 
combines  most  effectively  this  dramatic  movement 
with  theatrical  activity.  It  is  another  and  not  the 
least  of  his  many  superiorities  that  he  should  so  often 
succeed  at  once  in  setting  up  a  genuine  dramatic 
action  in  the  souls  of  his  people  and  in  expressing 
so  perfectly  that  inner  revolution  by  an  outward 


178  Romance  and  Tragedy 

and  physical  animation.  In  Racine's  tragedy, 
perfect  in  its  kind  as  it  is,  there  is  always,  it  must 
be  acknowledged,  a  disposition  to  repress  the  latter 
element  in  accordance  with  the  proprieties  and  to 
rely  too  exclusively  upon  recitation  alone  to  carry 
the  dramatic  action.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Corneille's 
most  admired  effects  are  usually  an  affair  of  elo- 
quence, even  oratory. 

In  this  respect  too  much  altogether  has  been 
made  of  the  so-called  statuesqueness  and  plasticity 
of  Greek  tragedy.  As  long  as  the  performance  was 
supposed  to  be  confined  to  an  impossibly  high  and 
shallow  stage,  along  which  the  actors  were  silhou- 
etted like  the  figures  in  a  bas-relief,  such  a  concep- 
tion was  perhaps  unavoidable.  But  with  the  orches- 
tra as  the  site  of  the  action  it  is  no  longer  necessary 
or  plausible.  That  Greek  acting  had  little  of  the 
minute  realism  which  characterizes  ours,  is  undoubt- 
edly true.  But  that  it  was  prevailingly  declamation 
and  recitation,  that  it  wanted  stage-effect,  the  text 
of  Electra  should  be  sufficient  to  disprove,  to  say 
nothing  of  Aristotle's  commentary.  Indeed,  on  the 
strength  of  the  devices  that  I  have  been  speaking  of 
—  peripeteia,  agnition,  and  pathos  —  M.  Lemaitre 
goes  so  far  as  to  rebuke  i^ristotle  for  his  sensation- 
alism. Very  well.  But  what  what  does  M.  Lemaitre 
expect?  What  is  tragedy  if  it  is  not  sensational? 
And  while  Greek  acting  lacked  realism,  there  must 
have  been  a  breadth,  a  massiveness,  a  gravity  about 
it  more  suitable  to  the  desperate  purposes  of  trag- 
edy, for  that  dark  and  sinister  background,  than  our 
painstaking  pastiche  of  common  reality,  of  the 
speaking  voice  and  the  daily  face. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  179 


IV 

From  this  sort  of  criticism  there  is  danger  of 
carrying  away  a  false  and  one-sided  idea  of  the  sub- 
ject. In  the  end  Greek  tragedy  does  leave  an 
impression  of  dignity,  repose,  and  serenity,  more  or 
less  suggestive,  perhaps,  of  the  epithet  statuesque. 
But  the  satisfaction  resides,  as  I  have  already  indi- 
cated, in  its  treatment,  not  in  its  subject-matter.  In 
the  latter  aspect  it  is,  if  anything,  more  terrible, 
monstrous,  and  revolting  than  our  Elizabethan  trag- 
edy of  blood.  In  the  German  Sturm  und  Drang 
itself  there  is  nothing  to  exceed  the  story  of  the 
Atreides,  upon  which  the  Oresteia  and  the  two 
Electras  are  based.  The  reproaches  that  Voltaire 
addressed  to  Hamlet  might  just  as  well  have  been 
addressed  to  the  (Edipus.  The  mere  repetition  of 
such  names  is  enough  to  show  how  elemental  is  the 
the  substance  of  Greek  tragedy  and  how  helplessly 
its  composure  depends,  not  upon  this  crude  and  san- 
guinary material,  but  upon  the  spirit  with  which 
it  was  animated  and  the  ideas  with  which  it  was 
informed.  As  mere  stuff  its  superiority  over  the 
Nibelungen  Lied  and  Beowulf  is  not  great.  As 
drama  its  superiority  consists  in  the  profound  moral 
significance  with  which  the  Greek  had  imbued  it. 
And  in  this  case  the  merit  belongs  to  the  race  as 
well  as  the  dramatist,  for  whose  hand  it  was  partly 
prepared  before  he  touched  it.  It  was  the  genius  of 
the  people  which  had  fitted  these  sinister  old  legends 
for  tragic  treatment  by  deepening  their  content  and 
suggestion.     In  themselves  they  are  like  windows 


180  Romance  and  Tragedy 

opening  upon  a  remote  and  savage  antiquity,  through 
which  it  is  still  possible  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  wild 
irrational  powers  moving  obscurely  in  the  gloom, 
of  the  fitful  workings  of  casualty  and  chance  — 
perfidies  of  nature  and  miscarriages  of  reason.  Con- 
sider only  the  labyrinth  of  (Edipus  or  the  ambages 
of  Ion. 

These  were  the  subjects  that  gave  the  Greek  his 
opportunity.  He  was  grappling  with  tremendous 
problems,  he  was  struggling  for  a  foothold  on  the 
brink  of  unreason,  he  was  confronting  the  irrespon- 
sible demonic  forces  of  creation,  he  was  wrestling 
for  the  secrets  of  destiny.  And  the  ground-work 
of  his  tragedy  was  vast,  portentous,  and  preter- 
natural. 

And  yet  out  of  all  this  confusion  and  anarchy 
there  seemed  to  be  something  slowly  shaping  —  an 
event,  an  issue,  a  fate  —  directing  itself  more  or 
less  vaguely,  in  the  midst  of  uncertainty  and  dread, 
to  some  far  off  and  indistinguishable  end.  Careless 
of  guilt  and  innocence,  heedlessness  and  premedita- 
tion, it  spared  one  and  spoiled  another  indifferently; 
it  required  the  child  of  its  parents  and  the  mother 
of  her  son;  it  snared  alike  the  crafty  and  the  unwary, 
the  pious  and  the  scoffer.  Unprognosticable,  it  did 
not  want  for  records:  whatever  came  to  pass,  bore 
witness  to  its  passage;  in  particular,  its  trail  lay 
over  certain  great  houses  and  illustrious  families. 
Capricious  as  its  dealings  with  the  individual  might 
seem,  it  was  impossible  in  the  long  run  to  deny 
them  a  kind  of  coherence  or  rough  and  ready  logic. 
Was  it  possible  to  go  still  farther:  in  spite  of  mis- 
leading appearances  and  occasional  inconsistencies 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  181 

could  they  be  reconciled  on  the  whole  with  the  ideal 
of  an  absolute  and  impartial  justice? 

Such  was  the  problem  which  the  dramatists  in- 
herited. In  the  case  of  ^Eschylus,  however,  it  is 
evident  that  this  attempt  at  the  moralization  of 
fate  has  by  no  means  met  with  perfect  success.  In 
what  remains  of  the  Promethean  trilogy,  which  is 
with  the  Oresteia  the  most  significant  in  this 
respect  of  all  his  extant  work,  the  result  looks  very 
much  like  a  compromise.  The  atmosphere  of  Prome- 
theus Bound  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  pretty  un- 
certain medium  for  the  conveyance  of  clear  ideas. 
It  is  the  day  after  the  deluge,  and  the  air  is  still 
thick  and  troubled.  Even  ^Eschylus  himself  is 
shaken.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  how  much  of  the 
modern  feeling  of  security  is  due  to  a  belief  in  the 
uniformity  of  nature,  how  much  to  a  faith  in  the 
beneficence  of  an  over-ruling  providence.  The  latter 
serves  to  guarantee  the  moral  order  in  as  far  as  it  has 
not  become  a  matter  of  total  indifference  to  us,  for 
we  seem  to  have  given  up  any  very  serious  thought 
of  the  establishment  of  such  an  order  in  the  world 
at  large;  while  the  former  acts  as  a  warranty  for  the 
physical  order  with  whose  ascendency  we  seem  to 
have  made  up  our  minds  to  rest  content.  But  how- 
ever this  may  be  and  whatever  their  relative  propor- 
tions, take  away  these  two  convictions  and  our  world 
would  fall  to  pieces.  And  yet  ./Eschylus  had  neither 
of  them.  He  had  no  sense  of  the  mechanical  con- 
catenation of  nature  and  he  had  no  surety  for  his 
gods.  Divinity,  as  his  religion  and  traditions  rep- 
resented it,  might  be  poetic;  it  was  anything  but 
moral.     In  a  word,  it  was  a  divinity  quite  in  the 


1 82  Romance  and  Tragedy 

present  aesthetic  taste  —  an  artistic  being  without 
moral  irrelevances,  which  would  heartily  have  ap- 
plauded the  programme  I'art  pour  I'art,  but  would 
hardly  have  made  a  reliable  guardian  of  manners. 
In  default,  then,  of  a  deity  to  whom  the  regulation 
of  such  matters  might  safely  be  entrusted,  iEschylus 
could  only  fall  back  upon  fate  itself  as  above  and 
beyond  the  gods  —  or  else  let  the  moral  order  go 
by  the  board,  and  with  it  the  only  law  and  security 
for  existence  of  which  he  had  any  conception.  But 
if  Zeus'  treatment  of  Prometheus  was  shocking,  was 
it  not  equally  shocking  of  fate  to  permit,  to  say 
nothing  of  ordaining,  such  an  atrocity?  What  pos- 
sible justice  was  there  in  condemning  Prometheus 
to  torture  for  his  benefits  to  humanity  in  defiance 
of  a  tyrant,  usurper,  and  parricide,  whose  highest 
title  to  consideration  would  seem  to  consist  in  the 
fact  that  he  was  able  to  command  the  services  of 
Kratos  and  Bia? 

That  this  question,  which  is  obviously  the  ques- 
tion raised  by  the  drama,  is  answered  in  a  thoroughly 
decisive  and  satisfactory  manner,  it  would  be  idle 
to  maintain  in  the  face  of  all  the  conflicting  inter- 
pretations of  which  the  play  has  been  the  subject. 
At  the  same  time,  I  believe  that  even  as  far  as  it 
goes,  the  drama  does  answer  the  question  partially, 
and  answers  it  in  accordance  with  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  Attic  tragedy.  That  /Eschylus  sympa- 
thized with  Prometheus,  is  pretty  clear.  No  doubt 
the  audience  sympathized  with  him  too.  But  not- 
withstanding the  representations  of  modern  criticism 
I  venture  to  think  that  he  was  not  to  the  Greek  the 
purely  sympathetic  character  which  he  has  become 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  183 

for  the  modern.  As  far  as  bare  intention  goes,  he 
was  properly  an  object  of  pity  in  his  distress,  after 
the  usual  fashion  of  the  tragedy  in  which  he  figured. 
At  the  same  time  his  sacrilege,  which  has  lost  its 
sting  for  us,  must  have  made  him  for  the  Greeks 
an  object  of  horror  equally.  Either  so;  or  the  feel- 
ings by  which  Aristotle  defines  the  impression 
of  his  tragedy,  must  be  so  indefinite  and  diffused 
as  to  make  his  statement  altogether  pointless  — 
an  apergu  rather  than  a  definition.  That  JEs- 
chylus  makes  no  attempt  to  gloze  his  protag- 
onist's fault,  ought  to  be  decisive.  Unmistakably 
as  he  sympathizes  with  Prometheus,  it  is  significant 
that  he  carefully  refrains  from  justifying  him.  On 
the  contrary,  he  appears  on  one  occasion  at  least 
to  have  put  an  admission  of  guilt  into  his  mouth  — 
r\fiapTov,  ovk  apt^crojucu.  Nor  does  it  matter  par- 
ticularly how  riiiapTov  be  translated  in  this  connec- 
tion; to  err  or  even  mistake  in  these  matters  was 
for  the  Greek,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  none  the  less 
a  sin.  In  so  far,  then,  ^Eschylus  keeps  the  idea  un- 
obscured.  Prometheus  suffers;  but  then  Prometheus 
has  violated  the  law  for  Titan  as  for  man,  and  to 
that  extent  his  punishment  is  just. 

And  yet  while  this  is  true,  it  must  be  conceded 
in  excuse  of  another  range  of  interpretation  that 
^Eschylus  shows  a  little  reluctance  to  trancher  the 
question.  It  is  as  though  the  matter  were  not  quite 
clear  in  his  own  mind.  While  he  refrains  from  justi- 
fying Prometheus,  it  is  equally  significant  that  he 
does  not  exert  himself  to  justify  Zeus  either.  Rather 
he  represents  him  as  himself  obnoxious  to  justice  — 
wherein,  to  be  sure,  he  seems  to  have  followed  his 


184  Romance  and  Tragedy 

traditions.  For  his  own  part,  however,  he  is  by  no 
means  sure  that  the  law  of  Zeus  is  a  moral  law; 
while  as  for  his  act  itself  he  evidently  regards  it  as 
abhorrent  in  its  extremity  and  depicts  it  as  an  act 
of  violence  —  a  irados  in  the  technically  Aristotelian 
sense.  Hence  his  reserves.  He  will  not  gainsay  the 
offense,  but  his  heart  is  divided.  If  both  are  liable  — 
for  does  not  fate  impend  upon  Zeus  also?  —  then  he 
seems  to  feel  as  though  the  fault  of  the  god  excused 
or  minimized  that  of  the  Titan.  There  is  something 
wrong  somewhere  —  with  the  institution  of  Zeus, 
perhaps.  Of  one  thing  alone  he  is  perfectly  certain 
—  that  order  is  better  than  chaos.  The  rule  of 
Zeus  may  be  arbitrary,  it  may  rest  on  force;  and  yet 
it  is  a  rule.  It  may  not  be  thoroughly  equitable 
as  yet,  as  an  institution  it  may  need  rectification; 
but  it  is  better  than  confusion,  it  is  the  one  means 
to  security  and  stability.  He  who  resists  and  defies 
it,  is  guilty  of  an  attempt  to  subvert  the  provisional 
moral  government  in  the  interests  of  anarchy. 
There  is  no  help  for  it:  he  is  an  agitator,  a  disturber 
of  the  peace;  he  must  be  quelled. 

Prometheus,  then,  is  the  revolutionary.  He  is  the 
first  of  mutineers,  and  to  this  fact  he  owes  his  for- 
tune as  the  great  romantic  and  humanitarian  symbol. 
He  belongs  to  the  race  of  dissidents,  nonconformists, 
insurgents,  or  whatever  name  they  may  be  called, 
who  revolt  against  a  necessary  discipline,  tradi- 
tional or  established,  in  the  name  of  a  lawless  and 
indeterminate  ideal.  No  wonder  that  he  received 
an  apotheosis  in  the  age  which  promoted  revolution 
to  the  rank  of  a  political  institution.  He  is  one  of 
that  dangerous  class  of  reformers  who  refuse  to 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  185 

proceed  by  due  process  of  law,  who  are  impatient 
of  its  restraints  and  delays,  and  would  suddenly 
take  the  execution  of  justice  into  their  own  hasty 
hands.  Like  them  he  obeys  no  higher  principle 
than  his  own  sympathies;  he  will  justify  the  means 
by  the  end  and  shelter  in  the  day  of  judgment  under 
the  fairness  of  his  intentions.  He  is  the  classical 
embodiment  of  individual  justice;  he  does  what 
seems  good  in  his  own  eyes.  That  he  would  do  right, 
is  sentimentally  a  migitating  circumstance;  his  crime 
is  that  he  would  do  right  wilfully  and  after  his  own 
mind.  That  he  happens  to  right  a  wrong,  to  antici- 
pate a  reform  —  that  he  is  the  noblest  of  rebels, 
makes  the  demoralization  of  his  example  no  less  — 
rather  the  greater.  Nor  does  it  affect  the  issue  par- 
ticularly that  his  rebellion  is  directed  against  a 
tentative  and  imperfect  administration.  What  ad- 
ministration is  otherwise? 

The  illustration  may  seem  far  fetched;  but  I 
never  read  the  Prometheus  that  I  am  not  reminded 
of  a  pensee  of  Pascal's: 

"  It  is  proper  to  observe  right ;  it  is  necessary  to 
observe  might.  Right  without  might  is  powerless;  might 
without  right  is  tyrannical.  Right  without  might  is 
disputed,  because  there  are  always  the  wicked;  might 
without  right  is  reviled.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to 
unite  right  and  might,  and  for  that  purpose  to  make 
right  mighty  or  might  right. 

"  But  right  is  subject  to  dispute;  might  is  easily  recog- 
nizable and  is  indisputable.  Hence  it  is  impossible  to 
annex  might  to  right,  because  might  has  contradicted 
and  asserted  that  she  alone  is  right.  And  so,  since  it 
is  impossible  to  make  right  mighty,  we  have  made  might 
right." 


1 86  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Not  that  this  conception  answers  exactly  to  JEs- 
chylus'  whole  thought.  What  Pascal  regards  as  a 
permanent  state  of  affairs,  ^schylus  contemplates 
as  a  transient  condition.  But  Pascal's  notion  is 
true  enough  for  the  moment  marked  by  the  Prome- 
theus Bound,  "  might  till  right  is  ready."  In  order 
that  justice  may  be  ultimately  ensured,  it  is  neces- 
sary first  to  found  a  power  capable  of  maintaining 
some  sort  of  order  and  discipline,  from  which  by  a 
process  of  gradual  correction  and  improvement  may 
be  developed  a  more  and  more  perfect  justice,  in 
which  the  rights  of  humanity  itself  shall  receive  their 
proper  recognition.  Such  is  apparently  the  condition 
on  which  Zeus  is  suffered  to  reign;  he  too  must  ad- 
just himself  to  a  higher  principle  than  his  own 
conveniency.  For  the  correction  and  perfection,  as 
for  the  maintenance,  of  that  moral  order  to  which 
the  obedience  of  inferior  beings  is  due,  Zeus  him- 
self is  answerable  to  the  fate  which  palpably  over- 
hangs him  throughout  the  tragedy.  He  must  recon- 
cile himself  with  Prometheus,  he  must  find  a  modus 
vivendi  with  the  champion  of  mankind,  which  has 
its  rightful  place  also  in  the  universal  polity  — 
before  his  sovereignty  is  confirmed.  If  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  trilogy  were  in  evidence,  it  is  probably 
with  this  accommodation  that  it  would  deal.  The 
first  necessity,  however,  is  to  create  the  idea  of 
justice  and  to  establish  it.  And  if  Zeus  is  justly  on 
probation  for  his  management,  Prometheus  is  no  less 
justly  in  duress  for  rebelling,  in  the  hot-headed  old 
Titanic  fashion,  against  the  sole  authority  by  which 
this  result  may  be  accomplished  and  its  fruits  se- 
cured. Before  the  advent  of  justice  the  world  must 
be  broken  of  Titanism. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  187 

Such,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  sense  of  the  drama; 
and  the  Oresteia  tends,  I  think,  to  confirm  this 
conclusion.  The  theme  is  the  same  in  both  in- 
stances. In  the  latter  case,  however,  where  we  have 
the  whole  story,  there  is  less  danger  of  mistaking 
its  purport.  The  only  difficulty  is  that  just  as  the 
modern  reader's  impression  of  the  Prometheus  is 
falsified  by  a  failure  to  feel  the  horror  of  Prome- 
theus' sacrilege,  so  here  his  judgment  of  the  Ores- 
teia is  liable  to  be  warped  inversely  by  an  inability 
to  feel  the  pity  of  Orestes'  murderous  legacy.  What 
requires  emotional  correction  with  respect  to  the 
tragic  passions  at  present,  is  not  the  odium  but  the 
pathos  of  the  action.  There  is  nothing  equivocal 
about  Orestes'  guilt:  matricide  is  as  abhorrent  to-day 
as  it  ever  was.  But  private  vengeance  is  no  longer 
recognized  as  a  duty;  there  is  nothing  that  is  sacred, 
little  that  is  sympathetic,  about  it.  In  the  mind  of 
the  Greeks,  however,  who  appreciated  the  obliga- 
tion of  the  latter  as  fully  as  the  abomination  of  the 
former,  the  situation  inspired  the  usual  tragic  du- 
plicity of  feeling.  They  were  of  a  temper  to  be 
touched  by  the  dutifulness  of  Agamemnon's  avenger 
and  to  be  horrified  at  the  impiety  of  Clytemnestra's 
executioner.  Otherwise,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  account 
for  my  sentiments  in  reading  the  trilogy;  for  I  must 
confess  that  my  wishes  are  for  the  success  of  Orestes 
and  his  sister,  much  as  I  may  reprobate  the  deed 
by  which  it  is  assured.  Nor  is  this  the  sentiment 
of  the  situation  as  such;  it  is  not  in  the  Electra  of 
Euripides.  The  ^Eschylean  Orestes,  though  a  crimi- 
nal in  act,  is  no  epileptic  monster  like  the  Euripi- 
dean:  albeit  he  does  not  lend  himself  so  readily  to 


1 88  Romance  and  Tragedy 

humanitarian  attitudinizing,  there  is  as  much  to  be 
said  for  him  as  for  Prometheus.  And  curiously 
enough,  it  is  Euripides  who  finally  says  it,  though 
not  much  to  his  advantage,  in  vilifying  Apollo  as  the 
instigator  of  his  crime.  As  for  ^schylus,  however, 
he  accuses  Apollo  no  more  than  he  does  Zeus  —  for 
one  thing  which  romantic  criticism  has  overlooked 
is  the  fact  that  if  Zeus  is  to  blame  for  Prometheus' 
plight,  Apollo  is  equally  to  blame  for  Orestes'  and 
with  less  excuse  because  without  provocation.  At 
best  the  circumstances  are  different,  the  responsi- 
bility is  the  same.  It  is  fair,  therefore,  to  argue 
that  ^Eschylus'  idea  must  have  been  alike  in  both 
cases.  But  if  anything  is  clear,  it  is  that  the  author 
of  the  Oresteia  is  no  romanticist;  he  is  not  disinte- 
grating the  moral  edifice  but  cementing  it;  he  is  not 
relaxing  discipline  but  tightening  it.  It  is  not  at 
Apollo's  expense  that  he  claims  the  audience's  pity 
for  Orestes,  whose  saving  virtue,  as  compared  with 
Prometheus,  is  his  submission  to  authority.  What 
is  impossible  and  intolerable  in  his  situation  is  the 
fault  of  an  imperfect  and  makeshift  institution,  the 
lex  talionis,  whose  whole  enormity  is  finally  demon- 
strated in  the  fatal  dilemna  of  this  last  sad  inheritor 
of  a  bloody  old  tradition.  The  impulsive  movements 
of  private  retaliation  must  give  way  to  the  deliberate 
decisions  of  an  impartial  and  dispassionate  court. 
And  though  it  would  be  an  insult  to  justice,  were  the 
perpetrator  of  what  is  after  all  a  monstrous  crime, 
allowed  to  go  scot  free,  yet  it  is  only  equity  that  he 
whose  sufferings  have  been  the  occasion  of  reform, 
should  benefit  by  the  amendment  to  whose  adoption 
he  has  at  least  contributed. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  189 

In  these  pieces  at  which  I  have  glanced  as  those 
most  critically  interested  in  the  method  and  concep- 
tion of  Attic  tragedy,  ^schylus  is  concerned  mainly 
for  the  reconciliation  of  might  and  right  through  the 
medium  of  divine  legislation  —  what  we  should  call 
nowadays  in  secular  terms  the  evolution  of  justice. 
The  subject  corresponds  with  his  place  in  the  history 
of  tragic  ideas  and  responds  to  the  conscious  craving 
for  a  definite  moral  constitution.  His  problem  is 
one  of  institutional  morality  —  if  such  a  phrase  is 
permissible  in  such  a  connection;  its  solution  is  an 
affair  of  moral  statesmanship  and  administration. 
Personally  I  do  not  believe  that  a  more  tremendous 
tragedy  than  Agamemnon  has  ever  been  written:  I 
do  not  know  of  any  tragic  impression  more  awe- 
inspiring  than  that  produced  by  Cassandra  arrested 
by  the  spirit  of  prophecy  at  the  door  of  the  Atreides' 
palace.  For  this  reason  I  hesitate  to  call  the  prob- 
lems of  private  morality  deeper  and  necessarily 
more  tragic,  after  the  current  manner  of  speaking. 
But  at  all  events  they  are  different;  and  it  is  these 
problems,  raised  by  spontaneous  impulses  and  by 
promptings  of  conscience  hopelessly  at  odds  with 
the  determinations  of  life  and  society,  which  are 
Sophocles'  peculiarly. 

In  Prometheus  and  the  Oresteia  the  tragic  schism 
is  wholly  external;  it  is  due  to  a  maladjustment 
which  may  be  corrected  without  permanent  harm  to 
the  persons  involved.  But  every  anomaly  felt  as 
tragic  is  not  to  be  explained  or  reconciled  so  happily. 
There  are  instances  in  which  it  is  inherent  and  fatal; 
in  which  it  involves  an  organic  lesion.  It  is  so  with 
(Edipus;  not  only  is  his  crime  his  own  but  the  re- 


190  Romance  and  Tragedy 

sponsibility  is  his  also.  Unlike  the  .Eschylean  Ores- 
tes he  acts  by  and  for  himself  and  at  his  own  peril. 
To  be  sure,  it  may  be  said  that  like  Prometheus 
he  acts  in  behalf  of  others  and  in  the  interests  of 
the  general,  whether  or  not  by  prescription.  But 
there  is  a  difference.  It  is  not  without  intention 
that  Sophocles  has  centered  the  drama,  not  upon  that 
portion  of  his  protagonist's  career  which  has  been 
mazed  and  darkened  by  celestial  counsels,  but  rather 
upon  that  portion  in  which  he,  the  child  of  fate  — 
7rcus  tvxvs  ,  as  he  calls  himself  with  cruelly  un- 
conscious irony  —  has  the  temerity  to  act  by  his 
own  lights  with  infatuate  confidence  in  the  clarity 
of  his  own  vision  —  he,  the  puppet  of  destiny, 
blindfold  from  birth,  who  has  never  taken  a  step 
with  a  full  sense  of  the  conditions  and  consequences 
of  his  action.  It  is  this  pretender  to  clairvoyance, 
this  dabbler  in  enigmas,  the  reader  of  the  riddling 
Sphinx  whom  Sophocles  represents  as  pretending 
lightheartedly  to  unravel  the  mystery  of  his  own 
being.  He  is  a  great  criminal,  to  be  sure;  but  he 
has  become  so  inadvertently  and  as  a  result  of  such 
a  skein  of  fatality  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  his 
lot  would  not  be  wholly  pitiful  (as,  indeed,  many 
have  found  it,  le  grand  Corneille  among  them,  who 
have  failed  to  attend  strictly  to  the  action)  if  it 
were  not  for  the  pertinacity  with  which  he  is  seen  to 
pursue  destruction  in  insensate  conceit  of  his  own 
sufficiency.  And  to  the  same  effect  the  length  of 
time  which  is  supposed  to  have  elapsed  since  his 
crimes  —  so  long  have  they  lain  concealed  that  they 
would  seem  entitled  to  a  measure  of  immunity,  as 
by  a  kind  of  unwritten  statute  of  limitations,  were 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  191 

it  not  for  the  fact  that  he  himself  is  the  one  who 
finally  unearths  them.  Had  he  been  brought  to  ac- 
count by  another,  it  would  have  appeared  little  better 
than  a  divine  inequity.  I  do  not  believe  that  any- 
one can  read  the  tragedy  intelligently  without  being 
sensible  of  presumption,  of  gross  moral  impropriety 
in  the  bias  whereby  CEdipus  is  impelled  to  seek  for 
himself  the  solution  of  his  own  problematic  exist- 
ence. It  is  no  correction  of  institutions  that  will 
mend  his  case  —  nothing  but  a  reformation  of  the 
entire  character. 

With  all  this  I  am  puzzled  to  understand  why 
the  CEdipus  has  never  received  the  same  sort  of  phi- 
losophical rating  as  the  Prometheus.  Its  significance 
is,  if  anything,  more  profound  and  is  certainly 
much  more  general.  It  is  the  very  type  of  life 
universal.  While  lending  itself  with  equal  readiness 
to  "  symbolic  "  interpretation,  it  has  never  been  sur- 
passed as  a  figure  of  human  responsibility  in  par- 
ticular. We  are  all  of  us  without  exception  in 
CEdipus'  case  —  rounded  like  him  with  ignorance 
and  mystery,  and  yet  obliged  to  act  incessantly 
and  at  our  own  hazard,  so  that  our  every  step  seems 
a  presumption  deserving  of  disaster  and  our  every 
judgment  an  arrogance  inviting  rebuke  and  humili- 
ation. Of  all  Greek  tragedy  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus 
seems  to  me  not  only  the  most  characteristic  of  the 
genius  which  produced  it  but  also  most  applicable 
to  our  hapless  human  lot. 

At  the  same  time  I  must  confess  to  a  particular 
affection  for  the  Electra.  Perhaps  it  is  the  situations 
that  especially  please  me  —  Orestes  at  the  gate  of  the 
palace  overhearing  his  sister's  lamentation;  Electra 


192  Romance  and  Tragedy 

herself  with  the  funeral  urn  in  her  hands;  the  recog- 
nition with  its  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling.  In  the 
face  of  the  impending  abomination  there  is  some- 
thing singularly  affecting  in  the  attachment  of  these 
two  ill-starred  children  of  a  murdered  father  —  the 
dependence  of  the  one,  the  assurance  of  the  other. 
But  however  this  may  be,  the  important  matter  for 
the  inherence  of  Sophoclean  tragedy  is  the  shift  of 
the  traditional  center  of  interest  from  Orestes  him- 
self to  his  sister.  However  it  may  be  with  him,  she 
at  least  is  under  no  divine  compulsion.  Her  only 
abettor  is  her  conscience.  She  acts  of  her  own 
accord  and  by  the  exigency  of  her  own  nature. 

But  after  all  the  clearest  illustration  of  Sophocles' 
conception  of  the  tragic  as  something  intimate  and 
essential  is  to  be  found  in  neither  of  these  pieces 
but  in  the  Antigone.  Ethic  I  was  about  to  call  it. 
And  for  that  matter  what  is  the  source  of  tragedy 
in  the  Antigone  but  the  collision  of  an  ethic  with  a 
moral  principle  —  of  the  fatal  propensities  of  char- 
acter with  the  prescriptions  of  social  or  civil  expedi- 
ency or  necessity?  It  is  the  usual  Sophoclean  theme, 
the  theme  of  (Edipus  and  Electra;  but  it  comes  out 
here  more  distinctly  than  elsewhere  on  account  of 
what  appears  to  us  the  superior  sanctity  of  the  for- 
mer, the  individual  principle  —  or  rather,  probably, 
on  account  of  the  comparative  insignificance  of  the 
latter.  And  yet  in  view  of  the  Greek's  devotion  to 
his  city  —  a  devotion  for  which,  narrow,  short- 
sighted, and  suicidal  though  we  esteem  it,  he  showed 
himself  willing  again  and  again  to  sacrifice  every 
advantage  and  undergo  every  hardship,  I  can  not 
make  so  light  of  Antigone's  contempt  of  what  to  her 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  193 

countrymen  was  patriotism  as  do  many  critics  for 
whose  opinions  I  usually  feel  the  greatest  deference. 
What  else  was  her  conduct  in  Greek  eyes  than 
treasonable?  And  little  as  we  are  at  a  point  of 
view  to  appreciate  this  sentiment  (though  this  is 
by  no  means  the  only  instance  on  record 
of  sectional  or  parochial  animosity  or  of  the 
obloquy  incurred  by  non-adherents  of  local  or 
party  politics)  I  still  believe  that  Antigone's 
disloyalty  to  the  polity  —  or  what  was  bound  to 
seem  such  in  the  heat  of  a  great  public  excitement  — 
must  have  been  a  scandal  to  a  Greek  audience, 
which  was,  on  the  other  hand,  in  no  less  favourable 
disposition  of  spirit,  in  comparison  with  us,  to  sym- 
pathize with  her  religious  scruples  as  distinct  from 
the  purely  personal  pathos  of  her  condition  and  be- 
ing. And  so  it  is,  I  believe,  that  Sophocles  intended 
her  to  appear  —  like  other  tragic  protagonists,  as 
an  object  of  horror  no  less  than  of  pity;  otherwise, 
there  would  be  something  gratuitous  in  the  extraordi- 
nary severity  which  characterizes  his  chief  magis- 
trate, by  her  attitude  to  whom,  as  the  representative 
of  the  government,  Antigone's  faithlessness  to  the 
commonwealth  is  dramatically  measured.  To  be 
sure,  such  asperity  is  natural  enough  to  a  person  or 
a  people  in  the  reaction  succeeding  immediately 
upon  a  tremendous  crisis.  But  if  that  were  all,  if 
the  point  were  merely  psychological,  Sophocles 
would  hardly  have  been  so  careful  to  restore  the 
equilibrium  by  meting  out  a  final  judgment  to  Creon 
for  exceeding  the  just  measure,  There  is  no  doubt, 
it  seems  to  me,  about  his  intention;  he  will  not 
countenance  contempt  of  the  supreme  impersonal 


194  Romance  and  Tragedy 

law  on  the  part  of  an  individual  whatever  his  or  her 
title  on  other  grounds  to  admiration  or  respect; 
for  "  value  dwells  not  in  particular  will." 

But  at  the  same  time,  while  Antigone  fits  the 
framework  of  its  genre  and  is  no  exception  to  the 
general  definition  of  Greek  tragedy,  I  am  well  aware 
that  for  us  to-day,  whose  ideas  of  religious  and 
civic  duty  are  so  different,  such  an  interpretation 
must  seem  far-fetched  and  forced.  Indeed,  there  is 
no  tragedy,  I  fancy,  even  of  the  Greeks,  with  respect 
to  whose  moral  bases  we  are  at  such  a  disadvantage. 
The  burial  motive  is  as  remote  from  our  instinct  as 
the  cult  of  the  city;  we  are  as  unfitted  to  respond 
to  the  one  as  to  the  other.  It  is  the  person  of  the 
heroine  almost  exclusively  that  appeals  to  us.  Ele- 
mentally, she  is  not  the  representative  of  any  special 
duty  or  set  of  duties  —  though  if  she  were  not  sus- 
tained by  a  sense  of  duty,  she  would  not  be  the 
noble  and  touching  figure  she  is.  For  our  emotions 
it  is  not  the  mere  political  and  social  crux  which 
makes  the  play  —  this  is  but  the  vehicle;  it  is  the 
case  of  conscience.  What  renders  the  tragedy  pe- 
culiarly affecting  among  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles, 
what  gives  it  its  specific  flavour  is  not  merely  the 
bare  dilemma  —  the  consciousness  of  rectitude 
which  can  neither  surrender  its  convictions  without 
shame  nor  persist  in  them  without  ruin,  but  the 
nature  of  the  protagonist  —  her  sex  and  youth,  her 
ill-omened  birth  and  her  attachment  to  the  son  of 
her  executioner.  No  wonder  that  she  has  become 
for  the  modern  one  of  the  great  sympathetic  char- 
acters of  literature,  like  Cordelia,  and  her  tragedy 
a  sentimental  one. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  195 

On  the  other  hand,  while  Sophocles  holds  the 
scales  even  —  while  he  gives  the  ethical  and  the 
moral  elements  alike  their  due  —  to  the  heroine's 
womanliness  its  meed  of  compassionate  admiration 
as  to  the  tyrant's  arrogance  its  fitting  correction, 
at  the  same  time  that  he  asserts  the  existence  of 
a  higher  authority  than  the  judgment  of  particulars 
—  yet  for  all  this,  which  escapes  us  more  or  less  but 
was  clear  enough  to  the  Greeks,  I  would  not  assert 
that  he  himself  had  in  mind  any  such  fleshless  for- 
mula as  that  which  I  have  applied  to  his  work.  All 
I  mean,  is  that  he  conceived  in  a  certain  way  and 
to  a  certain  effect,  which  I  have  tried  to  analyse  — 
roughly  and  bunglingly  enough,  I  dare  say.  No 
doubt  he  worked  by  touch,  not  by  measure.  He  was 
not  likely  to  stop  to  anatomize  an  effective  subject 
if  it  yielded  the  proper  emotions  on  inspection. 
But  that  in  spite  of  the  modern  perplexity  of  its 
theme  and  the  spontaneity  of  its  creation  the  Anti- 
gone does  take  down  regularly,  I  have  tried  to  show. 
Generically  and  schematically  it  is,  like  the  other 
works  of  its  author,  the  tragedy  of  the  indi- 
vidual will. 

In  general  terms,  it  is  from  the  same  source,  the 
conflict  of  the  ethic  with  the  moral,  that  Euripides 
derives  his  drama.  But  unlike  his  predecessors  he 
fails  to  sustain  the  supremacy  or  even  the  im- 
portance of  the  latter  principle,  and  failing  to  do  so, 
misses  the  distinctive  double  note  of  Greek  tragedy. 
His  favourite  procedure  is  to  represent  morality  as 
a  hollow  convention  or  tradition  with  little  or  no 
title  to  reverence  or  credit.  As  a  result  his  char- 
acters are  either  interesting  sinners  like  Medea  and 


196  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Phaedra  or  superstitious  bigots  and  credulous  gulls 
like  Orestes  and  Menelaus.  They  are  seldom  or 
never  actuated  by  conscience  or  conviction,  a  sense 
of  duty  or  obligation,  but  impulse  or  appetite,  desire 
or  caprice.  Like  Racine's  heroes  and  heroines,  they 
are  creatures  of  passion,  not  of  resolution  —  they 
suffer  their  destiny  rather  than  incur  it.  Of  the 
same  order  too  are  the  motives  of  his  divinities 
like  the  Aphrodite  in  Hippolytus  or  the  Apollo 
in  Ion. 

Particularly  Ion  —  what  can  be  said  of  its  pur- 
port? What  system  can  possibly  make  moral  sense 
of  such  a  skein  of  divine  knavery  and  deceit?  In 
these  respects  the  play  is  so  illustrative  of  the  Euri- 
pidean  skepsis  as  to  merit  a  brief  analysis.  If  the 
prologue  as  spoken  by  Hermes  contains  the  data 
of  the  piece  —  and  I  can  see  no  justification  on  this 
occasion  for  traversing  Euripides'  usual  practice  — 
then,  we  must  take  it  for  settled  that  Ion  is  the  son 
of  Apollo  and  Creusa.1  After  an  indefinite  interval 
of  neglect,  during  which  Creusa  has  married  Xuthus, 
and  her  child,  miraculously  rescued  from  exposure 
and  carried  to  Delphi,  has  been  brought  up  in  the 
service  of  the  temple,  Phoebus,  desirous  at  last  of 
establishing  his  son  advantageously,  plots  to  fob 
off  the  youth  upon  Xuthus  as  an  illegimate  son  of 
the  latter.  This  fraud  he  has  no  great  difficulty  in 
perpetrating  with  the  aid  of  his  oracle,  assisted  to 
some  extent  by  Xuthus'  credulity.  The  scheme  is 
in  a  fair  way  to  succeed  but  for  Creusa's  ignorance 
of  the  boy's  identity.    And  this  is  a  weak  joint  in 

1  But  compare  the  interesting  introduction  to  Yerrall's  edition 
of  the  play,  to  which  I  am  not  a  little  indebted. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  197 

the  structure  of  the  drama;  for  it  would  seem 
natural  that  Phoebus  should  contrive  some  means  of 
advising  Creusa  beforehand  of  his  amiable  inten- 
tions. As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  Creusa,  revolted 
by  her  husband's  attempt  to  smuggle  his  suppositi- 
tious child  into  the  family,  conspires  with  her  servant 
against  Ion's  life  but  to  such  ill  effect  that  she 
is  in  imminent  danger  of  losing  her  own.  In  the 
pinch  there  seems  no  way  of  saving  her  but  to  declare 
the  truth.  Hence  the  production  by  the  priestess 
of  the  cradle  and  the  so-called  "  proofs."  However, 
it  may  be  with  the  cold-blooded  critic,  this  evidence 
is  sufficient  to  convince  Creusa  that  Ion,  the  youth 
whom  she  has  plotted  to  kill,  is  indeed  her  child; 
while  for  the  audience  the  evidence  is  confirmed,  we 
must  believe,  by  the  testimony  of  Athena,  who  by 
way  of  saving  Apollo's  face,  appears  as  the  dea  ex 
machina,  in  Euripides'  habitual  manner,  to  close  the 
play.  The  piece  terminates,  then,  with  the  triumphal 
accomplishment  of  the  celestial  rascality.  Xuthus 
has  already  been  brought  to  acknowlege  the  boy  as 
the  fruit  of  his  own  amour;  and  now  Creusa  accepts 
him  for  her  part  by  a  similar  motive,  though  on 
better  grounds.  The  principals  are  in  accord;  and 
Ion's  fortune  is  assured.  As  to  the  possibility  that 
Xuthus  may  learn  of  the  deception  on  some  future 
occasion,  that  contingency  lies  without  the  bound- 
aries of  the  play  and  need  not  be  discussed. 

Upon  the  ethics  of  the  characters,  divine  and 
human,  concerned  in  this  travesty  of  providence, 
comment  is  superfluous.  They  are  all  unscrupulous 
equally.  If  anything,  indignation  sways  slightly  to 
the  advantage  of  Xuthus  as   the  party  actually 


198  Romance  and  Tragedy 

abused.  Nevertheless  he  himself  is  quite  unable  to 
appear  in  court  with  clean  hands.  The  only  case 
deserving  of  commiseration  is  Ion's.  He  has  no 
first-hand  information  of  any  sort  concerning  his 
birth  or  the  manner  of  it;  he  knows  only  the  two 
contradictory  accounts  of  his  parentage  —  the  one 
sponsored  by  the  oracle  to  the  effect  that  his  father 
is  Xuthus,  the  other  by  Athena  to  the  effect  that  his 
father  is  Apollo  and  his  mother  Creusa.  It  is  all 
very  well  for  the  audience  to  credit  the  latter  report; 
they  have  a  confidential  source  of  information  in 
the  prologue.  It  is  very  well  for  Creusa  too  to  do 
so,  if  she  will;  she  knows  the  circumstances  of  her 
son's  birth  and  exposure.  It  is  very  well  even  for 
Xuthus  to  think  as  he  does  at  his  own  peril;  he 
knows  at  least  his  past  and  its  opportunities.  For 
all  of  these  parties  to  the  transaction  there  is  some 
possibility  of  comfort  in  their  faith.  But  what  can 
be  the  state  of  Ion's  mind?  Obviously,  one  of  the 
divine  communications  must  be  a  lie  —  either  the 
oracle  of  Apollo  or  the  messenger  of  Apollo  is  false. 
And  if  one  is  false,  which?  And  if  either  is  false, 
what  is  the  security  for  the  other?  Why  not  both, 
then,  since  they  speak  for  the  same  principal?  And 
in  that  case,  how  about  the  priestess  with  her  cradle 
and  her  "  proofs "  ?  Ion  may  like  to  take  his 
mother's  word.  But  faith  and  security  are  dead 
forever.  From  the  happy,  confident  and  confiding 
ministrant  of  the  god,  serving  the  temple  and  scat- 
tering the  intrusions  of  the  birds  with  playful  threats 
and  mimic  violence,  he  is  doomed  logically  to  an 
anxious  and  troubled  future;  and  he  passes  sullenly 
into  the  great  doubt  that  has  been  prepared  for  him. 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  199 

Such    is    the    characteristic    moral    ambiguity    or 
obliquity  of  the  Euripidean  denouement. 

And  the  illustration  is  a  fair  one.  As  Euripides' 
tragedy  is  destitute  of  a  principle  of  any  kind  it  has 
no  minatory  or  exemplary  force  to  speak  of.  If  it 
is  moral  at  all,  it  is  so,  not  in  the  ^schylean  or 
Sophoclean,  but  in  the  modern,  the  humanitarian, 
manner.  In  this  one  sense,  since  his  drama  —  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  artless  and  appealing  but 
hardly  tragic  figures,  like  Ion,  who  are  usually  the 
dupes  or  victims  of  the  plausible  and  unscrupulous 
knaves  about  them  —  since  his  drama  is  a  marvel- 
lous illustration  of  the  vices,  frailties,  and  weak- 
nesses, the  "  humanity  "  of  mortals,  its  author  is 
not  undeserving  of  the  epithet  with  which  he  has 
been  graced  by  a  late  romantic  admirer,  "  Euripides 
the  human  "  —  an  attribution  with  whose  sentiment 
a  majority  of  Athenian  critics  would  probably  have 
concurred. 

In  these  respects  Euripides  is  not  very  unlike 
Ibsen.  Like  the  latter  he  too  is  unmistakably 
decadent  and  obsessed  by  the  nightmare  of  ugliness. 
It  is  not  so  much,  perhaps,  that  he  dotes  upon  the 
sordid,  the  base,  and  the  malodorous  —  though  at 
times  he  displays  no  little  complacency  in  their  de- 
piction—  as  that  they  haunt  and  fascinate  him; 
they  block  up  his  view  till  he  can  see  little  or  nothing 
else.  As  far  as  he  is  concerned,  the  heroic  has  ceased 
to  exist;  Helen  is  a  baggage,  Agamemnon  a  poli- 
tician, Menelaus  a  cuckold,  Ulysses  a  trickster, 
Orestes  an  epileptic.  For  the  tragic  emotion  of 
horror  he  substitutes  disgust;  for  the  moral  qualm 
of  his  predecessors  a  shrinking  of  the  flesh,  a  sense 


200  Romance  and  Tragedy 

of  physical  repugnance  and  nausea.  His  most  dis- 
tinctive dramatic  effect  results  from  a  certain  un- 
canniness  of  character  and  motive.  He  is  tempera- 
mentally ambiguous,  equivocal,  evasive,  shifty.  He 
is  prone  to  blink  the  issue,  to  refuse  to  look  the 
tragic  fact  square  in  the  face.  His  instinct  is  to 
deny  it,  if  possible,  to  juggle  it  away  by  some  trick 
of  theatrical  legerdemain;  at  all  events  to  deprive 
it  of  moral  relevance  and  competency. 

It  is  evident,  for  instance,  that  he  can  see  no 
sense,  no  reason  of  any  kind  in  the  sacrifice  of 
Iphigenia.  It  is  merely  odious  to  him  as  it  was  to 
Racine  centuries  later.  And  yet  what  becomes  of 
the  tragedy  without  it?  There  is  no  apparent  viola- 
tion of  justice,  nothing  to  raise  a  doubt  or  suggest 
a  suspicion;  there  is  no  qualm,  no  agony  of  question, 
no  mystery  at  once  terrible  and  revelatory.  It  is 
all  perfectly  simple,  open,  and  morally  intelligible. 
The  interest  centers  exclusively  upon  the  dramatis 
personce  and  their  conflicting  emotions.  It  is  dis- 
tinctively a  modern,  a  psychological  play.  As  con- 
trasted with  the  ^Eschylean  and  Sophoclean  tragedy 
of  principle,  it  is  concerned  solely  with  character 
and  its  expression. 

In  the  Electra,  on  the  other  hand,  the  absence  of 
a  clear  moral  issue  has  resulted  in  what  is  mainly 
a  drama  of  incident.  Orestes  is  nothing  more  or 
less  than  a  monster  for  his  pains,  Apollo  a  scoundrel 
for  instigating  him  to  an  unnatural  murder;  that 
is  all  there  is  to  it.  Aside  from  the  morbid  psy- 
chology incidental  to  the  situation  attention  has 
nothing  to  perch  upon  except  the  stratagem  and 
imposture   by   which  ^Egisthus   and   Clytemnestra 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  201 

are  disposed  of.  The  tragic  problem  has  vanished 
completely;  there  is  nothing  left  but  a  particularly 
harrowing  and  truculent  melodrama. 

As  a  result  of  his  inability  to  make  anything  out 
of  his  fables  and  his  impatience  with  the  interpre- 
tations of  others,  Euripides  is  reduced,  in  the  article 
of  theme,  to  the  secondary  role  of  critic.  This  is 
his  fundamental  weakness  as  a  playwright.  It  shows 
itself  in  the  loose  construction,  the  faulty  economy, 
the  feeble  effect  of  his  individual  dramas  taken  each 
as  a  whole,  to  say  nothing  of  his  faultfinding  digres- 
sions on  the  management  of  his  predecessors.  In 
particular,  since  he  sees  no  sense  in  his  action  as 
such  and  has  no  inkling  of  its  final  cause  or  rationale, 
it  is  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  he  can 
bring  a  play  to  a  close  at  all  —  only  by  some  con- 
ventional or  arbitrary  expedient,  a  dramatic  cliche 
or  theatrical  miracle.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  his 
pieces  seldom  conclude;  they  terminate.  Hence  his 
abuse  of  the  deus  ex  machina,  which  in  contradict- 
ing or  interrupting  the  logic  of  events,  is  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  a  nullity,  as  in  Iphigenia  at  Aulis,  or 
else  is  effective  only  in  dispelling  the  illusion,  as 
in  Orestes. 

The  effect  of  all  this  activity  was  inevitably  to 
discredit  and  invalidate  the  value  of  the  symbols 
with  which  Euripides  himself  was  obliged  to  work. 
In  transforming  in  this  way  the  old  mythology  into 
a  new  psychology,  his  treatment  of  his  matter  re- 
sulted in  dissolving  its  moral  ideas  and  in  emptying 
it  of  its  moral  content.  But  inasmuch  as  he  had 
nothing  else  to  build  upon,  he  virtually  knocked  the 
ground  from  under  his  own  feet  and  was  obliged 


202  Romance  and  Tragedy 

to  search  his  materials  for  other  means  of  defraying 
the  expenses  of  a  public  performance.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  in  turning  his  attention  from  the  sense 
of  the  transaction  as  a  whole,  he  comes  to  make  so 
much  of  its  constituent  moments.  Unable  to  com- 
prehend the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides,  he  can  only 
admire  the  ebulliency  and  agitation  of  their  surface. 
In  this  manner  he  becomes  the  dramatist  of  pas- 
sion. This  is  his  merit  and  distinction.  For  this 
kind  of  thing  he  was  eminently  fitted.  Before  he 
created  them,  such  figures  as  Phaedra  and  Medea 
had  never  been  dreamed  of;  and  in  some  respects 
they  have  never  been  surpassed  from  that  day  to  this. 
And  yet  this  limitation  —  for  limitation  it  is  to  see 
nothing  but  the  passions  to  which  an  action  gives 
rise  and  to  miss  its  moral  import  as  a  whole  —  re- 
sults in  laying  the  principal  dramatic  stress  upon 
sentiment;  it  makes  the  pathetic  the  sole  effect  of 
tragedy. 

Even  in  the  Hippolytus,  which  comes  closest  to 
the  standard  of  his  predecessors,  the  interest  cen- 
ters in  the  hero's  character  even  more  than  in  his 
behaviour.  In  a  way  it  is  almost  a  temperamental 
problem  which  is  propounded  —  and  solved  —  in 
the  sense  of  Greek  virtue.  But  the  fact  that  it  is 
solved  at  all,  is  the  important  matter  in  this  con- 
nection, since  it  is  the  solution  that  gives  tragedy 
its  moral  significance.  Hippolytus  is  responsible 
for  his  own  predicament.  Attractive  as  his  youthful 
person  may  be  and  praiseworthy  as  is  his  attachment 
to  Artemis  in  itself,  he  is  still  the  victim  of  his  own 
immoderation.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  modern 
tinge  to  the  story.     Hippolytus  is  an  appealing,  a 


The  Idea  of  Greek  Tragedy  203 

"  sympathetic  "  hero  in  a  manner  in  which  neither 
Agamemnon  nor  (Edipus  nor  Orestes  nor  any  of  his 
predecessors,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Anti- 
gone and  Prometheus,  were  appealing.  Further, 
the  duty  that  he  follows  is  but  his  own  inclination 
in  disguise.  So  warmly  has  he  made  himself  a  party 
to  the  traditional  feud  between  the  two  goddesses 
that  he  can  not  refrain  from  taunting  Aphrodite 
as  a  fly-by-night.  Nor  is  Artemis'  threat  to  have 
her  revenge  on  Aphrodite  at  some  future  time  by 
the  slaying  of  Adonis  or  otherwise,  particularly 
reassuring  for  the  permanent  establishment  of  right- 
eousness. 

'E7W  yap  auflis  aXKov  e£  tfxrjs  xepbs 
6s  av  fiaXicrd'  ol  (biXraTos  Kvpy  (3poTuv 
robots  afyvKTOLs  rotade  TLp.wpr]crop.aL. 

Indeed,  there  is  in  the  play  not  a  little  of  the  divine 
wantonness  for  which  its  author  was  in  the  habit  of 
disparaging  his  deities.  It  too  is  marked  by  the 
Euripidean  rictus. 

And  the  Bacchce,  if  it  is  anything  like  Euripides' 
last  word,  only  confirms,  with  something  of  the 
solemnity  of  a  testament,  the  melancholy  story 
which  the  Hippolytus  would  appear  to  have 
interrupted  but  half-heartedly  and  for  a  moment. 
If  the  play  has  any  sense,  it  can  mean  nothing  but 
a  divorce  between  divinity  and  justice,  which  JEs- 
chylus  and  Sophocles  had  done  their  best  to  recon- 
cile. It  is  nothing  short  of  a  repudiation  of  an  over- 
ruling providence.  The  gods  are  gods,  he  seems  to 
say,  they  do  as  they  list;  there  is  but  scant  virtue 


204  Romance  and  Tragedy 

in  them.  In  short,  as  I,  Euripides,  have  always 
contended,  the  order  of  the  universe  is  not  moral  but 
emotional.  Such  is,  to  be  sure,  Euripides'  one  wail- 
ing refrain;  but  in  the  Bacchce  he  seems  at  last  to 
acquiesce,  and  not  without  complacency  in  a  con- 
scienceless fatality. 

It  is  so  that  Euripides,  the  most  imitated  as  the 
most  consonant  of  classic  dramatists  with  later 
tastes,  serves  as  a  kind  of  transition  between  the 
serious  drama  of  ancient  and  modern  times.  In  his 
case  interest  had  already  begun  to  shift  from  moral 
to  psychological  problems,  from  the  quality  of 
actions  to  the  characters  of  men  and  the  activities 
of  nature.  It  as  though  he  had  undertaken  to  fore- 
cast the  terminals  toward  which  the  modern  drama 
would  move  in  its  evolution,  even  to  the  amorphous 
and  indiscriminate  drame  into  which  tragedy  proper 
has  finally  degenerated,  not  to  speak  of  the  Shakes- 
pearean tragedy  of  character,  which  he  may  have 
influenced  in  a  measure  through  Seneca,  and  the 
Racinean  tragedy  of  passion  of  which  he  was  obvi- 
ously the  direct  and  immediate  inspiration,  while 
the  deformation  of  his  tragedy  as  a  genre  was  evi- 
ently  in  the  direction  of  late  or  modern  comedy. 


RACINE 


WHEN  Racine  began  his  career  as  a  dramatist, 
he  found  the  general  definition  of  French 
tragedy  already  formulated  by  Corneille.     However 
the  latter  had  come  by  his  conception  —  whether 
freely  and  of  his  own  instance,  or  in  yielding  to  the 
pressure  of  official  criticism,  or  what  is  even  more 
likely,  in  attempting  to  effect  a  compromise  between 
these  two  influences  —  the  upshot  of  his  labour  was, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  doctrine  of  the  three 
unities.    All  that  remained  for  Racine  was  to  adapt 
himself  to  these  prescriptions.    Nor  should  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  task  be  underrated.     It  was  one  which 
Corneille  himself  had  failed  to  accomplish.     Classic 
by  method  and  finally,  perhaps,  by  conviction,  he 
was  incurably  romantic  by  temperament  and  inspira- 
tion and  was  never  wholly  successful  in  conceiving 
an  action  thoroughly  agreeable  with  his  own  for- 
mulae.   There  is  something  bungling  and  unhandy  in 
his  efforts  to  cage  a  broad  and  rambing  plot  within 
the  narrow  limits  required  by  his  theory;  something 
cramped  and  ungraceful  about  the  result.     In  a 
word,  it  would  hardly  be  unjust  to  say,  whatever 
praise  he  may  deserve  for  its  discovery,  that  he 
never  understood  the  practical  working  of  his  own 
invention ;  he  never  altogether  grasped  the  principles 

205 


206  Romance  and  Tragedy 

of  congruous  simplicity  characteristic  of  the  classic 
drama. 

To  illustrate  this  statement  I  need  only  refer  to 
Rodogune.  The  Cid  would  be  an  even  better  ex- 
ample, though  scarcely  so  fair  an  one,  since  it  was 
written  while  Corneille  was  still  serving  his  appren- 
ticeship. But  to  the  citation  of  Rodogune  for  such 
a  purpose  it  is  impossible  to  take  exception  since 
Corneille  himself  expresses  a  decided  preference  for 
it  over  all  his  preceding  performances  including  both 
the  Cid  and  Cinna.  And  the  significant  matter  is 
the  reason  he  assigns  for  his  favouritism.  Ab- 
stractly, the  frame  work  is  of  the  utmost  severity, 
such  as  is  ideally  prescribed  by  the  unities  of  time 
and  place,  as  Corneille  insists  that  he  is  practising 
them.  But  what  he  congratulates  himself  upon  is 
anything  but  the  harmonious  accommodation  of 
material  to  plan.  Rather,  he  justifies  his  fondness 
for  the  play  by  "  the  surprising  incidents,"  which, 
he  assures  us,  are  purely  of  his  own  "  invention  " 
and  "  have  never  before  been  seen  on  the  stage."  To 
be  sure,  he  acknowledges  that  his  "  tenderness  "  for 
this  particular  drama  may  be  in  the  nature  of  a 
parental  partiality  —  it  contains  so  much  of  him- 
self; but  the  very  fact  that  he  feels  it  at  all,  is  pretty 
good  evidence  that  he  never  quite  realized  the  obli- 
gations which  his  own  profession  of  the  unities  im- 
posed upon  him,  particularly  with  reference  to  the 
selection  of  congruous  subject-matter.  And  to  this 
charge  he  pleads  guilty  in  so  many  words  in  the 
Discours  de  la  Tragedie: 

"  It  is  so  unlikely  that  there  should  occur,  either  in 
imagination  or  history,  a  quantity  of  transactions  illus- 


Racine  207 

trious  and  worthy  of  tragedy,  whose  deliberations  and 
effects  can  possibly  be  made  to  happen  in  one  place  and 
in  one  day  without  doing  some  little  violence  to  the  com- 
mon order  of  things,  that  I  can  not  believe  this  sort  of 
violence  altogether  reprehensible,  provided  it  does  not 
become  quite  impossible.  There  are  admirable  subjects 
where  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  some  such  violence;  and 
a  scrupulous  author  would  deprive  himself  of  an  ex- 
cellent chance  of  glory  and  the  public  of  a  good  deal 
of  satisfaction,  if  he  were  too  timid  to  stage  subjects 
of  this  sort  for  fear  of  being  forced  to  make  them  pass 
more  quickly  than  probability  permits.  In  such  a  case 
I  should  advise  him  to  prefix  no  time  to  his  piece  or  any 
determinate  place  for  the  action.  The  imagination  of 
the  audience  will  be  freer  to  follow  the  current  of  the 
action,  if  it  is  not  fixed  by  these  marks,  and  it  will  never 
perceive  the  precipitancy  of  events  unless  it  is  reminded 
and  made  to  take  notice  of  them  expressly." 

Here,  then,  is  his  confession.  Do  the  best  you 
can  to  crowd  the  incidents  of  your  play  into  the 
compass  of  a  single  day  and  dodge  circumspectly 
anything  that  may  call  the  attention  of  the  audi- 
ence to  the  passage  of  dramatic  time  in  the  hope 
that  they  may  not  notice  the  imposture.  Every 
Corneillean  tragedy  conforms  more  or  less  closely 
to  this  general  rule.  I  can  not  think  of  one  in  which 
there  is  not  some  embarrassment  in  supposing  that 
the  whole  action  elapses  within  twenty-four  hours. 

On  this  account  it  is  not  quite  fair  to  represent 
Racine  as  merely  taking  over  Corneille's  model.  To 
the  formal  theory  and  criticism  of  French  tragedy, 
it  may  be,  he  contributed  little.  But  if  drama  is 
a  craft  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  then  the  man  who 
took  up  tragedy  at  the  point  to  which  Corneille  had 


208  Romance  and  Tragedy 

brought  it  and  carried  it  on  to  the  point  where  Racine 
left  it,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  added  little  or 
nothing  to  it.  And  the  misconception  arises,  I  be- 
lieve, from  a  persistent  confusion  with  regard  to 
one  of  the  unities  —  to  wit,  the  unity  of  action. 

However  it  may  be  with  the  unities  of  time  and 
place,  we  are  commonly  assured  that  all  drama,  the 
romantic  not  excepted,  has  one  unity  in  common, 
the  unity  of  action;  for  such  unity,  it  is  speciously 
added,  is  indispensable  to  a  dramatic  work  of  any 
kind.  That  the  statement  is  true  in  one  sense,  may 
be  granted;  most  statements  are  so  in  some  sense 
or  other.  But  that  the  romantic  drama  possesses 
unity  of  action  in  the  same  sense  as  the  classic 
drama  —  or  even  anything  that  would  have  been 
recognized  as  a  unity  by  Aristotle  —  such  a  position 
can  hardly  be  maintained  with  any  great  show  of 
plausibility.  Indeed,  so  great  is  the  difference  in 
kind  that  the  use  of  the  same  term  with  reference 
to  the  two  dramas  is  misleading  and  bewildering  in 
the  extreme.  As  well  say  that  romantic  tragedy 
possesses  unity  of  time  and  place  because  each  in- 
dividual scene  is  within  itself  continuous  and 
stationary. 

The  fact  is  that  the  romantic  and  the  classic 
actions  are  conceived  in  two  quite  different  manners 
and  produce  two  quite  distinct  impressions.  While 
the  latter,  as  everybody  acknowledges,  is  concerned 
only  for  the  upshot  or  issue  of  a  certain  business  or 
transaction;  the  former  is  concerned  equally  for 
its  inception  and  development  —  for  the  soil  in 
which  the  tragic  seed  is  planted  and  the  climate  in 
which  it  is  ripened  even  more  than  for  the  fruit 


Racine  209 

which  it  finally  bears.  It  is  as  though  the  romantic 
playwright  were  absorbed  in  demonstrating  how 
such  a  result  was  brought  about  by  successive  steps; 
while  the  classic  playwright  is  interested  only  in  the 
nature  and  symptoms  of  the  disease  itself.  Scrupu- 
lous as  is  Sophocles  in  general,  he  is,  to  all  appear- 
ance, quite  indifferent  to  the  antecedent  improb- 
abilities of  his  (Edipus  Tyr annus;  evidently  he 
recognizes  no  obligation  to  account  for  his  tragic 
consequences.  In  the  romantic  action  this  tragic 
matter  is  anatomized  or  parcelled  out  into  its  various 
constituent  incidents,  circumstances,  and  details, 
the  which  are  all  set  forth  severally  and  serially  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  spectator  gains  his  notion 
of  the  tragedy  as  a  whole  by  a  retrospective  and 
discursive  act  of  the  imagination.  In  the  classic 
form  the  tragic  affair  is  caught  at  its  culmination 
or  crisis  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  made  to  yield  all 
it  contains  of  human  significance  and  purport.  The 
former  is  historical,  the  latter  moral.  The  one  views 
its  subject  as  a  process  or  a  becoming;  the  other  as 
a  state  or  a  being.  If  I  were  not  afraid  of  being  mis- 
leading in  my  turn,  I  should  insist  upon  this  dis- 
tinction and  assert  for  the  sake  of  contrast  that  in 
the  matter  of  procedure  the  one  is  dynamic  or 
kinetic,  the  other  static  —  not  that  nothing  happens 
in  the  latter  but  that  what  does  happen,  happens 
inside  the  situation.  At  all  events,  as  far  as  names 
are  concerned,  the  romantic  drama,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  method,  may  safely  be  described  as  ana- 
lytic, the  classic  as  synthetic. 

That  these  two  ways  of  handling  plot  are,  in 
reality,  so  diverse  as  to  merit  different  names,  and 


210  Romance  and  Tragedy 

that  the  unities  of  time  and  place  are  thoroughly 
incompatible  with  the  romantic  conception,  no 
modern  reader  with  a  sense  for  Shakespeare  and 
Sophocles  can  deny,  when  actually  put  to  it.  On  the 
very  surface  of  things  it  is  impossible  to  think  of 
a  moral  fatality  of  tragic  magnitude  historically, 
as  originating,  developing,  and  terminating  all  in 
the  course  of  a  single  day  —  even  a  more  or  less 
elastic  stage  day  —  or  to  treat  it  historically,  as 
confined  to  such  a  period:  the  preparation  alone 
would  be  prohibitive.  In  Othello  Shakespeare  has 
indeed  tried  something  of  the  sort;  but  even  here 
he  has  taken  pains  to  truncate  his  action  uncom- 
monly, beginning  much  farther  in  than  is  usual  with 
him.  And  still  in  this  case  the  result,  as  far  as 
it  is  not  purely  romantic,  is  Corneillean  —  the  action, 
where  it  is  not  extended,  is  merely  compressed  and 
makes  no  pretense  to  the  congruous  simplicity 
demanded  by  the  unities.  In  a  word,  it  is  still  an- 
alytic, no  matter  what  artifice  has  been  used  to  make 
it  appear  foreshortened.  And  it  is  just  Racine's 
distinction  to  have  recognized  this  fact —  of  the 
essential  incompatibilty  of  such  an  action  with  the 
unities  of  time  and  place,  a  fact  to  which  Corneille 
was  totally  blind  —  and  to  have  succeeded  in  work- 
ing out  a  genuine  unity  of  action  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word  —  a  synthetic  action,  that  is,  —  which 
would  be  comformable  with  the  other  unities  — 
though,  indeed,  it  is  a  distinction  that  is  usually 
overlooked  or  misesteemed. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  notorious  rivalry  between 
the  two  great  poets,  amounting  to  little  less  than 
open  hostility,  ought  to  be  quite  enough  in  itself 


Racine  211 

to  discredit  the  commonplace  that  Racine  was  a 
mere  successor  or  continuator  to  Corneille.  In 
reality,  Racine,  while  accepting  Corneille's  definition 
of  the  drama  in  general  terms,  censures  expressly 
his  management  of  at  least  two  unities,  those  of  time 
and  action,  with  severity.  As  Corneille  was  in  the 
habit  of  handling  it,  the  unity  of  time  was  by  his 
own  confession  nothing  but  a  barefaced  trick  or  de- 
ception —  barefaced  to  the  reader,  however  it  might 
appear  to  the  spectator.  It  consisted,  as  he  himself 
explains,  in  ignoring  the  actual  duration  of  events 
in  favour  of  an  hypothetical  stage-day  of  twenty- 
four  hours  or  thereabouts.  Upon  his  choice  and 
organization  of  material  it  exerted  little  or  no  in- 
fluence. For  the  playwright  who  is  embarrassed 
by  the  extent  of  his  subject  or  by  a  plethora  of  inci- 
dent he  has  no  better  advice,  as  has  been  seen,  than 
to  refrain  from  mentioning  the  topic  on  the  off 
chance  that  the  audience  may  fail  to  notice  the  con- 
gestion of  the  action.  In  short,  for  all  his  flounder- 
ing Corneille  never  succeeded  in  imagining,  much 
less  in  defining,  a  unity  of  action  commensurate 
with  his  ideal  unities  of  time  and  place.  The  near- 
est he  comes  to  doing  so  is  in  his  "  unity  of  peril  "  ; 
and  how  unsatisfactory  that  was  he  was  himself  the 
first  to  acknowledge.  To  all  intents  and  purposes  his 
action  remains  of  the  same  dimensions  as  that  of 
the  Spanish  commedia;  it  is  as  diffuse  and  pro- 
tracted, as  wanting  in  concision  and  concentration: 
—  his  efforts  are  directed  solely  toward  disguising 
its  character.  Apparently  it  never  occurred  to  him 
that  the  solution  of  the  whole  problem  consisted 
in  such  an  ordonnance  of  his  plot  that  the  unities 


212  Romance  and  Tragedy 

of  time  and  place  should  be  involved  in  the  nature 
of  the  action  itself  and  should  result  from  it,  in- 
stead of  being  imposed  upon  it  as  a  durance  or  con- 
straint. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  unities  of  time 
and  place,  as  far  as  they  are  valid  at  all,  are  only 
functions  of  the  unity  of  action. 

At  all  events,  it  is  directly  against  this  method 
of  dramatic  composition  that  Racine  directs  his 
satire  in  replying  to  the  detractors  of  his 
Britannicus: 

"  What  can  be  done,"  he  asks,  "  to  satisfy  such 
rigorous  judges "  as  these  umbrageous  Corneil- 
leans?    And  he  answers: 

"  Nothing  is  easier  in  defiance  of  good  sense.  All  you 
have  to  do  is  to  abandon  naturalness  for  extravagance. 
Instead  of  a  simple  action  [italics  mine]  made  up  of  a 
modest  amount  of  material,  which  takes  place  in  a  single 
day  and  advances  gradually  to  a  conclusion  sustained 
only  by  the  interests,  sentiments,  and  passions  of  the 
characters,  you  must  cram  this  same  action  with  a 
great  quantity  of  incidents  which  could  not  possibly 
come  to  pass  in  less  than  a  month,  with  a  vast  amount 
of  stage  clap-trap  the  more  amazing  the  more  unlikely 
it  is,  with  a  multitude  of  declamations  wherein  the  actors 
are  made  to  say  just  the  contrary  of  what  they  should." 

And  to  the  same  effect  in  a  familiar  passage  of 
the  preface  to  Berenice  he  insists  upon  this  per- 
tinent simplicity  of  action: 

"Nothing  matters  much  in  tragedy  save  likelihood; 
and  what  is  the  likelihood  that  there  should  happen  in 
a  single  day  a  multitude  of  things  which  could  hardly 
happen  in  several  weeks?     Some  there  are  who  think 


Racine  213 

that  this  simplicity  is  a  sign  of  small  invention.  They 
fail  to  notice  that  on  the  contrary  all  invention  consists 
in  making  something  out  of  nothing  and  that  all  this 
great  mass  of  incident  has  ever  been  the  recourse  of  those 
poets  who  have  felt  their  genius  too  frail  and  scanty 
to  hold  their  audience  for  five  acts  by  a  simple  action 
[italics  mine,  again]  supported  by  the  violence  of  the 
passions,  the  beauty  of  the  sentiments,  and  the  elegance 
of  the  expression." 

As  compared  with.  Corneille's  confessed  weakness 
for  "  surprising  incidents,"  the  like  of  which  had 
never  before  been  seen  on  the  stage,  these  expres- 
sions would  seem  to  be  sufficiently  explicit.  It  is 
not  the  multitude  or  variety  of  incident  which  is 
to  furnish  forth  the  perfect  tragedy;  it  is  passion, 
sentiment,  expression,  which,  so  far  from  disagree- 
ing with  simplicity  of  action,  in  reality  concur  with 
it;  for  here  as  everywhere  it  is  upon  this  significant 
simplicity  of  action  that  the  whole  weight  and  force 
of  Racine's  authority  is  brought  to  bear. 

As  for  the  unity  of  place  —  it  is  in  itself  a  minor 
matter  anyway.  That  is  to  say,  the  unity  of  place 
offers  no  such  difficulty  in  the  problem  of  verisimi- 
litude as  does  the  unity  of  time.  There  is  no  pro- 
hibitive improbability  that  an  action  of  any  ex- 
tent, provided  it  be  confined  to  the  linear  dimension, 
should  not  occur  in  a  single  place.  One  may  be 
born,  wed,  and  die  in  the  same  room,  as  far  as  that 
goes  —  though  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  all  these 
events  as  taking  place  on  the  same  day.  It  is  for 
this  reason,  perhaps,  that  Racine  nominally  con- 
forms to  Corneille's  receipt  in  setting  all  his  dramas 
for  a  single  room  or  apartment  —  with  the  excep- 


214  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tion  of  Phedre,  which  is  set,  in  accordance  with  an 
earlier  recommendation  of  the  same  authority,  for 
a  single  "  site."  Nevertheless  his  own  practice  im- 
plies a  kind  of  criticism  of  Corneille's.  With  the 
latter  the  single  room  or  cabinet  which  served  as 
the  local  habitation  of  his  drama  was  a  stage  fiction 
no  less  truly  than  his  dramatic  day.  Convention- 
ally —  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  often  shifts 
from  one  spot  to  another  —  it  was  feigned  to  ad- 
join the  apartments  of  the  principal  characters  and 
to  represent  a  kind  of  indifferent  or  neutral  ground 
where  all  parties  to  the  action  were  equally  at  home, 
and  where  etiquette  and  precedence  were  suspended 
in  the  article  of  entrances  and  exits.  Actually,  it  was 
a  mere  theatrical  spot,  non-committally  furnished 
and  decorated,  where  the  actors  met  regardless  of 
verisimilitude,  whenever  the  playwright  needed 
them,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  the  play.  In 
the  hands  of  Racine,  however,  this  convention  be- 
comes more  or  less  of  a  dramatic  reality.  There  is 
some  difficulty,  to  be  sure,  in  actualizing  the  "  loca- 
tions "  of  Phedre;  but  as  a  general  thing,  his  action 
does  take  place  in  the  chamber  where  it  is  cast, 
whether  the  harem  of  a  sultan  or  the  anteroom  of 
an  emperor,  the  appearance  of  his  characters  in 
that  particular  spot  is  reasonable,  and  a  violation 
of  etiquette,  if  there  is  one,  is  always  excused  by  the 
logic  of  the  situation. 

Now,  all  this  was  possible  —  Racine  was  able 
to  make  the  unities  of  time  and  place  a  dramatic 
reality  instead  of  a  theatrical  fiction  by  means  of 
his  own  contribution  to  French  tragedy  —  a  con- 
tribution which  I  have  spoken  of,  properly  or  not, 


Racine  215 

as  the  discovery  of  a  genuine  unity  of  action.  But 
no  matter  for  the  name;  his  originality  consisted 
in  seeing  —  what  is  fairly  obvious  at  present  but 
what  at  the  time  escaped  the  eye  of  the  grand 
Corneille  —  that  a  drama  as  a  whole  is  determined 
by  the  plot  and  that  in  order  to  have  a  certain  kind 
of  tragedy  it  is  necessary  to  begin  with  a  certain 
kind  of  action.  Unlike  Corneille  he  was  sufficiently 
in  sympathy  with  the  Greek  spirit  to  perceive  the 
artificiality  of  the  Corneillean  tragedy  with  its  arbi- 
trary limitations  of  the  plot  as  contrasted  with  the 
intimate  connection  between  the  action  and  what 
virtually  amounted  to  the  unities  of  time  and  place 
in  the  best  Athenian  tragedy,  and  to  recognize  that 
the  success  of  the  same  unities  in  French  and  the 
perfection  of  the  type  to  which  they  belonged  hinged 
likewise  upon  the  conception  of  an  action  which 
should  reduce  the  dimensions  of  tragedy  to  the  pro- 
portions of  a  crise  or  paroxysm.  As  Lemaitre  points 
out,  he  begins  Britannicus  twenty-four  hours  before 
Nero's  first  crime;  Berenice  twenty- four  hours  be- 
fore the  heroine  leaves  Rome;  and  Andromaque 
twenty-four  hours  before  Pyrrhus  decides  in  favour 
of  his  captive.  Only  so  was  it  possible  to  confine 
the  drama  to  a  single  room  or  even  site  and  to  a 
single  revolution  of  the  sun.  Tragedies  do  occur  in 
rooms  and  they  occur  of  a  sudden,  no  doubt;  but 
they  are  tragedies  of  emotion,  not  of  incident.  They 
are  affective  tragedies  —  tragedies  in  which  much  is 
felt  and  something  is  said,  but  in  which  compara- 
tively little  is  done.  They  are  tragedies  in  which 
the  characters  suffer  their  fate  —  in  a  single  word, 
they  are  tragedies  of  passion  and  the  characters  are 
patients. 


216  Romance  and  Tragedy 

And  this  is,  I  fancy,  the  explanation  of  that  Chris- 
tian passivity  ascribed  to  Racine's  drama  and  re- 
ferred by  Sainte-Beuve  to  his  Jansenist  education. 
While  Corneille,  it  has  been  pointed  out,  remains 
a  pagan  to  the  end,  Racine  manifests,  as  the  saying 
is,  a  genius  naturally  Christian.  As  compared  with 
the  softness  and  infirmity  of  Racine's  characters, 
there  is  about  Corneille's  something  a  little  extrav- 
agant and  demonic,  even  Titanic  — 

"  Qu'il  joigne  a  ses  efforts  le  secours  des  enfers, 
Je  suis  maistre  de  moy  comme  de  l'univers."  x 

It  is  as  though  the  former  were  concerned  to  point 
in  them  the  moral  of  original  sin  and  efficient  grace. 
In  themselves  they  are  powerless  for  virtue  —  pup- 
pets of  temptation  like  Phedre,  recipients  of  evil 
suggestion,  possedes  —  without  force  or  initiation 
of  their  own.  That  such  is  the  effect  of  his  drama 
I  have  said  myself;  nor  would  I  deny  that  his  school- 
ing at  Port-Royal  may  have  inclined  his  mind  to 
such  an  interpretation  of  life  and  humanity.  But 
I  would  insist  that  such  an  interpretation  conforms 
also  to  the  formal  obligations  of  his  tragedy  and  is 
not  so  very  different  after  all  from  the  tragic  vision 
of  the  Greeks.  Whether  they  were  naturally  Jan- 
senist is  a  question  I  should  hardly  care  to  raise.  But 
granted  Racine's  problem,  he  could  scarcely  have 
found  another  solution  of  it  so  happy  as  that  afforded 
him  by  this  tragedy  of  pathos  and  infirmity. 

Nor  is  it  without  significance  that  so  many  of  his 

1  In  quoting  Corneille  and  Racine  I  use  the  spelling  and 
accentuation  of  Fournel's  edition  (Librairie  des  Bibliophiles)  based 
on  the  last  editions  published  during  the  authors'  lives. 


Racine  217 

dramas  bear  the  names  of  women  —  Andromaque, 
Berenice,  Iphigenie,  Phedre,  to  say  nothing  of  Esther 
and  Athalie,  which  lie  outside  of  my  cadre,  as  do 
also  Alexandre  and  Les  Freres  Ennemis.  Of  the  ex- 
ceptions —  in  Mithridate  alone  does  an  heroic  figure 
dominate  the  stage,  though  even  he  is  in  his  period  of 
dej alliance  and  eclipse.  As  for  Bajazet  it  had  much 
better  been  called  after  Roxane;  while  Britannicus, 
too,  is  something  of  a  misnomer  for  a  play  that  cen- 
ters upon  the  adolescent  Nero.  The  truth  is  that 
as  a  tragedy  of  passion  the  nature  of  Racine's  drama 
— like  the  depravity  of  Nero  himself  with  its  long 
suppression  and  gestation,  its  violent  spasm  and  its 
quick  collapse  —  is  essentially  feminine. 

Obviously,  such  a  drama  is  not  without  its  inci- 
dental technical  advantages  over  and  above  its 
simplifications  of  the  unities.  Its  preparation,  for 
instance,  is  immaterial  and  subjective:  it  is  all  in- 
ternal and  mental,  dependent  upon  the  state  of  mind 
of  the  characters ;  and  hence  it  requires  little  exposi- 
tion save  what  is  involved  in  the  psychology  of 
the  situation  itself  and  developed  pari  passu  with 
the  progress  of  the  play.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
noteworthy  that  one  of  the  best  evidences  to  the 
artificiality  of  Corneille's  dramatic  construction  is 
furnished  by  the  inherent  difficulty  of  his  exposition 
—  he  complains  of  it  himself  —  which  makes  pretty 
nearly  every  one  of  his  entrances  into  the  matter 
a  tour  de  force.  At  the  same  time  the  Racinean 
outbreak  or  denouement  has  the  corresponding  merit 
of  being  as  sudden  and  violent,  like  an  explosion  or 
convulsion  of  nature.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to 
apply  a  match  to  the  train  —  to  invent  the  one 


2i8  Romance  and  Tragedy 

little  contingency  capable  of  precipitating  the  catas- 
trophe. Consider  how  simple  is  the  machinery  of 
Andromaque  in  comparison  with  that  of  Lear  or 
Hamlet;  it  is  a  mere  release  or  trigger.  There  is 
no  difficulty  in  imagining  such  a  tragedy  as  occurring 
in  a  single  day  and  in  a  single  chamber  wherever 
the  combustible  happens  to  be  stored.  And  it  was 
to  his  conception  of  a  tragedy  of  this  sort  —  as  an 
eruption  of  the  most  vehement  of  human  passions  — 
that  Racine,  I  repeat,  owed  his  invention  of  a  modern 
action  perfectly  in  keeping  with  the  unities  of  time 
and  place. 

In  this  connection  it  would  be  unpardonable  to 
omit  a  reference  to  what  is  after  all  the  great  supe- 
riority of  the  classic  drama.  The  supreme  merit 
of  the  simplified  or  synthetic  plot  which  is  the  de- 
termining feature  of  that  drama,  whether  in  the 
hands  of  the  Greeks  or  of  Racine,  consists  in  the 
fact  that  it  allows  the  dramatist  time  and  opportun- 
ity for  the  conception  and  development  of  a  definite 
and  deliberate  theme.  "  Le  premier  merite  d'une 
ceuvre  dramatique,"  declares  Vinet,  "  c'est  qu'une 
idee  s'en  degage  nettement  et  vivement,  c'est  qu'on 
puisse,  comme  un  discours  oratoire,  la  reduire  a  une 
proposition."  The  great  weakness  of  the  romantic 
drama  has  always  and  everywhere  been  its  lack  of 
theme.  And  particularly  is  this  statement  true 
of  the  Spanish  commedia  as  practised  by  Calderon, 
Lope  de  Vega,  and  Tirso  de  Molina.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  a  play  or  two  like  La  Vida  es  Sueiio, 
Spanish  tragedy  is  almost  themeless  —  unless  for 
the  tiresome  pundonor,  and  that  is  a  motive  rather 
than  a  theme.    Or  if  a  romantic  tragedy  has  hap- 


Racine  219 

pened  to  catch  a  momentary  glimpse  of  something 
that  might  have  served  it  for  a  theme,  the  pressure 
of  incident  has  been  so  irresistible  as  to  jostle  it 
out  of  sight  forthwith.  In  the  best  of  instances  it 
remains  rudimentary  and  inchoate,  hardly  rising 
above  the  suggestion  of  a  motive.  There  is  no  place 
or  leisure  for  it  in  the  serried  procession  of  events, 
marching  hurriedly  by  numerous  degrees  from  a 
distant  inception  to  a  remote  issue.  The  interest  is 
distributed  so  impartially  over  the  series  that  little 
or  no  attention  is  left  with  which  to  exhaust  the 
sense  of  a  single  situation.  As  far  as  I  can  remem- 
ber, there  is  nothing  in  romantic  tragedy,  for  ex- 
ample, to  parallel  the  discussion  over  the  corpse  of 
Ajax  —  the  soliloquies  of  Hamlet,  perhaps,  ex- 
cepted; and  even  they  seem  strangely  clouded  in 
comparison.  As  for  Corneille,  he  does  marvellously 
well  in  this  respect  for  all  his  disadvantages,  as 
witness  Pompee  and  Cinna.  But  naturally  enough, 
under  the  circumstances,  it  is  in  Racine,  whose 
characters  of  passion  have  little  more  to  do  than  just 
to  exhaust  the  sense  of  their  situation,  that  the 
theme  attains  its  fullest  development.  And  it  is  one 
of  his  aptitudes  that  this  treatment  should  suit  so 
well  with  the  particular  passion  that  he  picked  as 
the  lever  of  his  tragedy. 

That,  as  compared  with  the  Greeks,  his  conception 
of  passion  was  limited  must  be  conceded,  — 

"  C'est  Venus  toute  entiere  a  sa  proye  attachee." 

It  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  his  exclusive  preoc- 
cupation with  one  master  passion  —  this  virtual 
identication,  for  dramatic  purposes,  of  passion  with 


220  Romance  and  Tragedy 

sexual  desire,  gives  his  drama  as  a  whole  an  air  of 
one-sidedness.  But  whether  the  theater  be  dedi- 
cated to  Cypris  or  Dionysus  makes  little  difference; 
the  point  is  that  though  the  Greeks  used  other 
motives,  they  reached  the  same  destination  by  the 
same  route.  Their  action  is  viewed  in  the  same 
manner,  synthetically,  as  a  spasm  or  fit  of  emotion; 
it  is  by  madness,  fatuity,  or  some  other  brief  and 
violent  distraction  that  the  Greek  denouement  is 
brought  to  pass.  With  them  the  tragic  motive  is  a 
passion  too  —  a  something  suffered  or  endured,  — 

kird  to.  y'epya  /jlov 
ireTOvOoT'  earl  /jloXKov  77  dedpaKora. 

And  like  Racine  again  they  were  obliged  to  think  of 
their  hero's  fatality  as  a  kind  of  distemper  or  mal- 
ady. It  was  not  at  random  that  Boileau  with  Racine 
in  mind  enjoined  the  tragic  poet, 

"  Et  que  Pamour,  souvent  de  remors  combattu, 
Paroisse  une  foiblesse  et  non  une  vertu." 

Such  a  treatment  is  involved  in  the  notion  of  the 
type,  as  the  Greeks  with  their  usual  penetration 
had  not  failed  to  discern. 

Ibsen,  too,  in  reviving  the  type  —  the  synthetic, 
as  perhaps  I  may  now  be  permitted  to  call  it  from 
my  description  of  the  action  —  has  been  forced  to 
adopt  the  same  dramatic  tactics.  Like  Racine's  his 
is,  in  its  own  way,  the  tragedy  of  an  apartment  and 
an  obsession.  Upon  differences  of  tone  and  atmos- 
phere it  is  needless  to  dwell;  one  has  only  to  recall 


Racine  221 

those  ill-ventilated,  stove-choked  rooms  of  his,  with 
their  frost-blistered  windows  over-looking  the  snow- 
bound and  sea-haunted  moors  and  firths  of  the 
inclement  north.  But  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the 
mechanism  is  of  the  same  sort  —  for  all  its  moral 
confusion  the  action  is  subject  to  the  same  simpli- 
fication and  the  motive  is  conceived  as  an  infirmity. 

To  return  to  Racine,  one-sided  as  his  partiality 
for  love  may  seem  in  the  bulk,  it  still  gives  his 
single  pieces  a  wonderful  intensity  and  power;  for 
after  all  there  is  no  other  human  passion  quite  so 
impetuous  and  headlong.  And  what  it  lacks  of 
itself  in  virulence  it  acquires  by  association  with  its 
accomplice  passion,  jealousy.  Hence  his  constant 
employment  of  this  second  and  subordinate  motive 
as  a  prick  or  goad  to  the  former.  The  perfection 
of  his  drama,  therefore,  consists  in  the  complica- 
tion of  these  two  motives  —  love  and  jealousy. 
Hence  while  Berenice  serves  well  enough  as  a  kind 
of  outline  of  his  tragedy,  its  fulfilment  is  repre- 
sented by  Phhdre. 

To  take  Berenice,  for  all  its  slenderness,  as  an 
example  of  his  bare  idea,  is,  I  suppose,  fair  enough, 
since  he  himself  in  the  preface  seems  to  offer  it  as 
such.  In  the  words  of  Vinet,  whose  comments  on 
all  this  literature  are  uncommonly  pertinent, 
11  Berenice  n'est  pas  le  chef-d'oeuvre  de  Racine; 
mais  c'est  ce  qu'il  a  fait  de  plus  racinien."  That 
the  plot  is  meagre  to  the  point  of  emaciation,  may 
be  granted;  but  for  that  reason  the  scheme  itself  is 
only  the  more  salient.  It  consists  obviously,  in  the 
author's  own  words,  of  "  a  simple  action  "  —  hardly 
more,  to  be  exact,  than  a  situation.    It  is  a  posture 


222  Romance  and  Tragedy 

and  a  precarious  one,  terminating  in  a  single  ex- 
pressive gesture  of  renunciation  and  regret: 

"  '  Tout  est  prest.  On  m'attend.  Ne  suivez  point  mes  pas. 
Pour  la  derniere  fois,  adieu,  Seigneur.' 

'Helas!  '" 

The  development,  then,  will  consist  of  three  parts: 
first  an  explanation  or  "  exposition  "  of  the  relations 
of  the  parties  in  confrontation;  second,  a  demon- 
stration of  the  emotional  tensions  and  their  potency; 
and  third,  an  exhibition  of  their  release  and  an  indi- 
cation of  the  outcome.  All  that  is  necessary  for  a 
representation  of  this  sort  is  that  the  personages 
should  meet  and  speak  together;  and  this  they 
may  do  as  well  in  one  room  as  in  the  universe  at 
large.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  am  not  sure  that  the 
impression  is  not  intensified  by  the  sense  of  con- 
finement and  constraint  so  produced,  as  it  might  be 
with  an  explosion  in  a  narrow  space,  and  as  it  is 
also  to  my  mind  by  the  absence  of  blood-letting  at 
the  close.  "  It  is  unnecessary,"  says  Racine,  "  that 
a  tragedy  should  be  glutted  with  blood  and  death. 
It  is  enough  that  the  action  should  be  noble,  the 
actors  heroic,  the  passions  excited;  and  that  the 
entire  piece  should  be  redolent  of  that  majestic 
grief  which  makes  the  pleasure  of  tragedy."  And 
there  is,  indeed,  about  the  play  a  sort  of  appalling 
tightness  or  constriction  —  binding  the  characters 
like  a  fatal  ligature  —  to  which  an  act  of  violence 
would  be  a  relaxation  and  to  which  the  piece  is  in- 
debted for  its  individuality  as  compared  with  the 
other  dramas  of  Racine.  It  may  not  rise  to  the 
highest  effect  of  which  tragedy  is  capable;  but  at 


Racine  223 

its  acme,  when  Berenice  fancies  that  Titus  is  slip- 
ping from  her,  it  does  rise  to  a  very  high  pitch  of 
poetry: 

"  Pour  jamais!  Ah!  Seigneur,  songez-vous  en  vous-meme 
Combien  ce  mot  cruel  est  affreux  quand  on  aime? 
Dans  un  mois,  dans  un  an,  comment  souffrirons-nous, 
Seigneur,  que  tant  de  mers  me  separent  de  vous, 
Que  le  jour  recommence  et  que  le  jour  finisse 
Sans  que  jamais  Titus  puisse  voir  Berenice, 
Sans  que  de  tout  le  jour  je  puisse  voir  Titus." 

Nevertheless,  its  merits  and  demerits  aside,  I 
am  proposing  Berenice  only  as  an  illustration  of  the 
author's  bare  idea.  For  the  elaboration  of  the  sketch 
it  is  necessary  to  turn  to  PhMre.  If  one  were 
considering  the  "  art  "  of  Phedre  without  reference 
to  any  particular  thesis,  it  would  be  difficult  to  know 
where  to  begin  or  end.  Certainly,  one  could  hardly 
refrain  from  expatiating  upon  the  delicacy  and 
firmness  of  drawing  in  the  characterization  of  the 
heroine, 

"  La  fille  de  Minos  et  de  Pasiphae;  " 

the  subtlety  with  which  from  the  first  she  insinuates 
herself,  with  all  the  morbid  fascination  of  her  moral 
distemper  and  personal  disorder,  into  the  blood  and 
senses  of  the  audience.  The  debut  of  all  Racine's 
heroines  is  tremendously  effective  —  Monime's  is  a 
good  instance;  but  Phedre's  is,  in  especial,  insidious: 

"  N'allons  point  plus  avant,  demeurons,  chere  (Enone. 
Je  ne  me  soutiens  plus,  ma  force  m'abandonne; 
Mes  yeux  sont  eblouis  du  jour  que  je  revoy, 
Et  mes  genoux  tremblans  se  derobent  sous  moy  .  .  . 


224  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Que  ces  vains  ornemens,  que  ces  voiles  me  pesent! 
Quelle  importune  main,  en  formant  tous  ces  nceuds, 
A  pris  soin  sur  mon  front  d'assembler  mes  cheveux? 
Tout  m'afflige  et  me  nuit,  et  conspire  a  me  nuire  .  .  . 
Noble  et  brillant  auteur  d'une  triste  famille, 
Toy  dont  ma  mere  osoit  se  vanter  d'estre  fille, 
Qui  peut-estre  rougis  du  trouble  ou  tu  me  vois, 
Soleil,  je  te  viens  voir  pour  la  derniere  fois!  " 

Nor  would  a  critic  at  large  be  likely  to  overlook 
the  knowingness  of  Hippolyte's  "  psychology  "  or 
the  propriety  of  his  preferences  —  only  a  novice  in 
love  would  have  had  eyes  for  Aricie  when  Phedre 
was  by  —  nor  would  begrudge  a  word  or  two  for 
Aricie  herself,  "  la  belle  raisonneuse  "  of  the  salons, 
who  takes  love  to  be  some  kind  of  syllogism.  But 
such  matters  and  others  like  them  deserve  more  than 
passing  mention;  and  in  view  of  my  immediate 
subject  I  can  dwell  only  upon  what  is  indicative  of 
Racine's  fundamental  reduction  of  the  tragic  motive 
to  a  passion  in  the  primary  sense  of  the  word.  From 
this  point  of  view  it  is  Phedre's  passivity,  her  incapa- 
bility of  self-determination  that  is  significant  both 
for  this  one  play  and  for  Racine's  entire  theatre 
in  general.  It  is  this  impotence  which  has  won  her 
the  doubtful  distinction,  already  mentioned,  of  being 
cited  as  an  illustration  of  Augustinian  theology. 
But,  however  that  may  be,  the  characteristic  trait 
of  Racinean  tragedy  is  unmistakable  in  this,  its 
extreme  instance.  Phedre  is  not  merely  a  sufferer 
and  a  patient;  hers  is  the  debility  of  innate  deprav- 
ity, and  invalided  and  graceless  as  she  is,  her  hapless 
soul  is  the  prey  of  the  whole  passionate  intrigue 


Racine  225 

to  which  she  is  exposed.  Hence  her  drama  is  the 
pendant  and  complement  to  that  of  the  more  limited 
and  stubborn  Berenice,  whose  Hebraism  stands  her 
in  good  stead  at  her  hour  of  trial. 

In  harmony  with  this  difference  of  character  the 
motive  of  Berenice  is  simple  and  uncomplicated;  it 
is  the  Racinean  interpretation,  sponsored  by  Boileau, 
of  love  as  a  passion  or  infirmity.  By  this  one  malady 
alone  all  the  characters  in  common  are  afflicted; 
Antiochus  himself  is  no  more  than  a  backing  or  foil 
to  Titus  and  Berenice.  The  intensity  of  interest  is 
due,  not  to  a  conflict  or  conspiracy  of  passions,  but 
to  the  strangulation  of  this  one  passion  by  circum- 
stances. The  play  consists  wholly  of  the  fluctuations 
of  this  same  passion  between  hope  and  disappoint- 
ment and  its  final  settlement  upon  resignation.  In 
Phedre,  on  the  other  hand,  this  single  passion,  while 
it  is  still  agitated  by  its  fluctuations  and  before  it 
has  settled  down  either  to  resignation  or  to  despair, 
is  exasperated  by  the  goadings  of  jealousy  —  a 
motive  virtually  absent  from  Berenice,  if  we  except 
a  brief  impersonal  resentment  at  the  meddling  of 
circumstances,  for  jealousy  as  such  is  not  in  Bere- 
nice's character  or  in  Titus'  situation  —  there  is  too 
much  of  the  prude  in  the  former,  too  much  of  the 
grand  seigneur  in  the  latter;  while  Antiochus  is  too 
tame  to  be  subject  to  it.  But  in  Phedre,  if  love  is 
the  emotional  protagonist  of  the  drama,  jealousy 
is  the  deuteragonist.  Nor  is  this  all;  there  is  a 
tritagonist  also.  In  Phedre's  situation  love  is  not 
merely  an  infirmity,  it  is  a  crime  and  an  impiety. 
And  in  the  devastation  of  her  ineffectual  spirit  the 
outrages  of  love  and  jealousy  are  fatally  abetted  by 


226  Romance  and  Tragedy 

remorse.  Such  is  the  complicity  of  passions 
which  instigates  the  emotional  transport  of  the 
tragedy  —  one  of  the  finest  I  believe  in  dramatic 
literature,  as  Phedre  is  baited  alternately  by  the 
taunts  of  one  and  another. 

"  Phedre 

"  '  lis  s'aiment !     Par   quel  charme  ont-ils  trompe  mes 
yeux? 
Comment  se  sont-ils  veus?  depuis  quand?  dans  quels 

lieux? 
Tu  le  scavois:  pourquoy  me  lassois-tu  seduire? 
De  leur  furtive  ardeur  ne  pouvois-tu  m'instuire? 
Les  a-t-on  veu  souvent  se  parler,  se  chercher? 
Dans  le  fond  des  forests  alloient-ils  se  cacher? 
Helas!  ils  se  voyoient  avec  pleine  license: 
Le  Ciel  de  leurs  soupirs  approuvoit  l'innocence; 
Ils  suivoient  sans  remords  leur  penchant  amoureux; 
Tous  les  jours  se  levoient  clairs  et  sereins  pour  eux! 
Et  moy,  triste  rebut  de  la  nature  entiere, 
Je  me  cachois  au  jour,  je  fuyois  la  lumiere  .  .  .' 

"  CEnone 

"  '  Quel  fruit  recevront-ils  de  leurs  vaines  amours? 
Ils  ne  se  verront  plus.' 

"  Phedre 

"  '  Ils  s:aimeront  toujours.  .  .  . 
Miserable!     Et  je  vis!  et  jet  soutiens  le  veue 
De  ce  sacre  Soleil  dont  je  suis  descendue! 
J'ay  pour  ayeul  la  pere  et  le  maistre  des  dieux; 
Le  ciel,  tout  l'univers  est  plein  de  mes  ayeux: 
Ou  me  cacher?     Fuyons  dans  la  nuit  infernale. 
Mais  que  dis-je?     Mon  pere  y  tient  l'urne  fatale; 
Le  Sort,  dit-on,  l'a  mise  en  ses  severes  mains. 
Minos  juge  aux  enfers  tous  les  pales  humains.'  " 


Racine  227 

This  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  Racine  is  really  cap- 
able of:  it  is  not  only  great  tragedy,  it  is  great 
poetry;  and  it  needs  no  commentary  of  mine  by 
way  of  reinforcement. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  not  be  understood  to 
imply  that  Racine's  entire  drama  squares  in  every 
respect  with  the  lines  of  Berenice  and  Phedre.  Of 
these  two  plays  the  one  is  too  schematic,  the  other 
too  consummate  to  be  thoroughly  representative. 
One  does  not  repeat  a  Phedre  or  a  Berenice  — 
though  for  quite  different  reasons.  But  for  all  that, 
they  define  the  type.  They  exhibit — all  the  more  dis- 
tinctly, if  anything,  for  being  exceptional  in  detail  — 
the  characteristic  originality  which  I  have  been  try- 
ing to  vindicate  for  their  author.  They  declare 
that  simple  or  synthetic  action,  the  discovery  or 
invention  of  which  converted  the  serious  drama  of 
Louis  XIV  from  an  artifice  and  made  a  modern 
classic  tragedy  possible  for  once.  And  they  reveal 
the  means  whereby  Racine  accomplished  this  result 
by  treating  the  plot  as  a  crise  of  passion  —  typically, 
of  love  and  jealousy  —  of  which  the  characters  were 
patients  or  sufferers,  so  harmonizing  his  action  with 
the  "  unities  "  of  time  and  place,  which  the  criti- 
cism of  the  Academy  and  the  example  of  Corneille 
had  fastened  upon  his  stage. 

To  be  sure,  his  technical  procedure  was  not  that 
of  the  Greeks.  The  latter,  by  the  force  of  circum- 
stances of  which  the  choric  origin  of  their  tragedy 
was  undoubtedly  the  most  influential,  had  developed 
out  of  the  natural  limitations  of  their  action  a  con- 
gruous simplicity  of  treatment,  from  which  the  prag- 
matic criticism  of  the  Renaissance  had  formulated 


228  Romance  and  Tragedy 

the  unities  of  time  and  place.  Racine,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  these  canons,  had  found  himself  confronted 
with  the  problem  of  restoring,  to  a  literature  tumid 
with  romantic  elements,  the  simplicity  in  which  it 
was  wanting,  by  disengaging  from  the  miscellaneous 
mass  a  unity  of  action  to  correspond  with  the  con- 
ventions of  his  time.  This  was  his  contribution. 
And  I  have  no  hesitation  in  calling  it  original,  and 
the  drama  to  which  he  successfully  appropriated  it 
classic,  though  to  that  tragedy  I  shall  have  certain 
moral  reservations  to  make  a  little  later. 

In  the  meanwhile,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  devote 
a  few  words  to  the  subject  of  his  versification  —  or 
more  exactly,  his  dramatic  style,  for  as  a  foreigner 
I  do  not  feel  myself  competent  to  criticize  the  jacture 
of  his  verses.  And  here,  again,  though  his  original- 
ity may  not  be  so  vital  and  important  as  in  the  case 
of  his  innovations  upon  the  dramatic  structure  of  his 
immediate  predecessor,  still  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked 
or  neglected.  Now,  dramatic  poetry,  naturally,  is 
confined  to  the  business  of  drama.  And  drama,  as 
far  as  it  expresses  itself  in  language  —  that  is,  as 
far  as  it  is  a  matter  of  poetry  at  all  —  expresses  itself 
in  dialogue  —  or  exceptionally,  in  soliloquy.  But 
dialogue,  while  always  seeking  something  of  the 
illusion  of  speech,  will  draw  its  individuality  from 
the  situation  which  calls  it  forth.  Typically,  the 
Corneillean  situation  in  its  significant  scenes  was 
essentially  a  disputation,  wherein  each  character 
represented  his  own  thesis  and  strove  to  convince  or 
argue  down  his  respondent  or  respondents,  as  may  be 
seen  by  the  scenario  of  Polyeucte.  Hence  the  charac- 
teristic temper  of  Corneille's  dramatic  style  is  orator- 


Racine  229 

ical  and  its  most  elevated  note  is  that  of  eloquence. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  no  tragedy  in  its  serious  mo- 
ments —  and  Racine's  is  naturally  no  exception  — 
can  afford  to  be  less  than  eloquent  at  the  least,  or 
it  would  sink  to  ordinary  conversation  and  prose. 
But  the  peculiarity  of  Corneille  is  that  he  is  so 
exclusively  eloquent  in  his  loftiest  reaches,  so  seldom 
or  never  anything  else.  His  political  orations  are 
concededly  the  best  things  he  does.  How  greatly 
they  were  admired,  how  compelling  their  vogue  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  Racine  has  executed  one  of 
the  most  prominent  scenes  of  his  Mithridate  in  the 
same  taste.  And  while  such  passages  are  not  those 
that  stick  most  tenaciously  in  my  memory,  even 
those  that  do  are  in  the  same  vein : 

"  La  vie  est  peu  de  chose;  et  tot  ou  tard  qu'importe 
Qu'un  traitre  me  l'arrache,  ou  que  1'age  l'importe? 
Nous  mourons  a  toute  heure;  et  dans  le  plus  doux  sort 
Chaque  instant  de  la  vie  est  un  pas  vers  la  mort." 

Good  lines;  but  their  excellence  is  the  excellence 
of  eloquence.  Like  all  Corneille's  best  they  are 
perceptibly  declamatory: 

"  Nerine 

"  '  Forcez  l'aveuglement  dont  vous  etes  seduite, 
Pour  voir  en  quel  etat  le  sort  vous  a  reduite. 
Vostre  pais  vous  hait,  vostre  epoux  est  sans  foy, 
Dans  un  si  grand  revers,  que  vous  reste-t'il?  ' 

"  Medee 

"  '  Moy.'  " 


230  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Conceivably,  however,  there  is  room  for  something 
else  even  in  the  most  serious  drama,  as  we  who  are 
the  heirs  of  Shakespeare  need  hardly  be  told.  Not 
that  Shakespeare  himself  despised  the  embellish- 
ments of  elocution.  Such  commonplaces  as  Antony's 
harangue  over  the  body  of  Caesar  and  Portia's  apos- 
trophe to  mercy  witness  clearly  enough  to  the 
contrary.  But  then  Shakespeare  had  no  prejudices 
against  doggerel  or  balderdash  either.  Everything 
was  grist  that  came  to  his  mill  with  the  result  that 
he  had  the  widest  range  of  expression  that  ever  was, 
so  that  pretty  nearly  every  variety  of  dramatic 
style  may  be  illustrated  by  his  example.  And  while 
Racine's  scale  is  much  more  limited  than  his,  as  it 
is  bound  to  be  in  many  cases  by  the  different  logic 
of  their  genres  so  that  comparison  is  illegitimate; 
still  Racine's  reach  is  much  more  comprehensive 
than  Corneille's  and  demonstrates  much  more 
favourably,  just  as  does  the  former's  conception  of 
the  action,  the  possibilities  of  the  types  with  which 
the  two  were  dealing. 

If  now  we  place  eloquence  at  one  pole  of  the  gen- 
uinely poetic  tragedy,  then  at  the  other  terminal  we 
must  obviously  set  up  lyricism,  a  lyricism  adapted 
—  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  at  first  sight  —  to 
the  uses  of  the  drama  and  adjusted  to  the  nature 
of  the  situation.  The  word  lyricism,  I  should  per- 
haps add,  I  use  in  its  fundamental  sense  to  denote 
the  essential  quality  of  lyric  poetry  and  without 
recognition  of  the  rather  derogatory  connotation  it 
has  acquired  recently  from  reactionary  French  crit- 
icism. But  lyric  expression  is  the  result  of  intense 
personal  absorption;  hence  it  would  appear  wholly 


Racine  231 

incompatible  with  the  gregariousness  of  drama,  ex- 
cept for  the  more  or  less  anomalous  soliloquy.  From 
the  nature  of  the  case,  then,  it  can  occur  in  non- 
choric  tragedy  only  at  those  rarer  intervals  when 
a  character  is  rapt  beyond  the  consciousness  of  his 
neighbours  and  his  immediate  surroundings  either  by 
recollection  or  by  extreme  excitement.  And  for  the 
sake  of  clearness  I  will  illustrate  both  of  these  cases 
by  Shakespeare.  Of  the  former  variety  Marcellus' 
speech  in  Hamlet  after  the  disappearance  of  the 
ghost  is  a  good  instance: 

"  It  faded  on  the  crowing  of  the  cock. 
Some  say  that  ever  'gainst  that  season  comes 
Wherein  our  Saviour's  birth  is  celebrated, 
The  bird  of  dawning  singeth  all  night  long: 
And  then,  they  say,  no  spirit  dares  walk  abroad; 
The  nights  are  wholesome;  then  no  planets  strike, 
No  fairy  takes,  nor  witch  hath  power  to  charm, 
So  hallow'd  and  so  gracious  is  the  time." 

This  is  a  lovely  example  of  the  dramatic  lyricism 
of  recollection.  While  the  speech  of  Claudio,  in 
Measure  for  Measure,  on  what  he  fancies  to  be  the 
eve  of  his  execution,  though  in  another  key  alto- 
gether, is  an  equally  good  example  of  the  dramatic 
lyricism  of  extreme  excitement: 

"  Ay,  but  to  die,  and  go  we  know  not  where; 
To  lie  in  cold  obstruction  and  to  rot; 
This  visible  warm  motion  to  become 
A  kneaded  clod;  and  the  delighted  spirit 
To  bathe  in  fiery  floods,  or  to  reside 
In  thrilling  regions  of  thick-ribbed  ice; 


232  Romance  and  Tragedy 

To  be  imprisoned  in  the  viewless  winds, 
And  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendant  world;  or  to  be  —  worse  than  worst  — 
Of  those  that  lawless  and  incertain  thought 
Imagine  howling." 

Such  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  kind  of  lyricism  pro- 
duced and  legitimatized  dramatically  by  a  sudden 
or  violent  excitement  —  in  this  case  the  dread  of 
death. 

Now,  the  characteristics  of  these  two  influences  — 
of  recollection  and  excitement  both,  the  one  induced 
by  reaction,  the  other  by  shock  —  coalesce  and  run 
together  inseparably  in  passion  of  the  Racinean 
type  —  which  with  one  and  the  same  motion  pro- 
vokes the  spirit  of  the  patient  and  throws  it  back 
upon  itself.  Just  as  the  expression  of  elevated  am- 
bition is  naturally  oratorical,  that  of  love  is  naturally 
lyrical.  For  this  reason  the  "  lyric  cry,"  which  is 
almost  wholly  absent  from  Corneille,  is  audible 
again  and  again  on  the  lips  of  Racine's  characters, 
especially  his  heroines.  It  is  possible  that  verses 
as  picturesque  as  the  following  may  be  matched 
elsewhere  in  French  tragedy  of  the  time,  though  I 
do  not  happen  to  recall  any: 

"  Et  la  Crete  fumant  du  sang  du  Minotaure," 

or  this: 

"  Ariane  aux  rochers  constant  ses  injustices." 

But  in  the  passages  that  I  have  already  quoted  from 
Berenice  and  Phedre  the  novelty  is  undeniable: 


Racine  233 

"  lis  suivoient  sans  remords  leur  penchant  amoureux; 
Tous  les  jours  se  levoient,  clairs  et  sereins  pour  eux! 
Et  moy,  triste  rebut  de  la  nature  entiere, 
Je  me  cachois  au  jour,  je  fuyois  la  lumiere." 

And  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a  new  note  in 
Monime's  appeal  to  Xiphares  at  her  debut  in  the 
second  scene  of  Mithridate: 

"  Seigneur,  je  viens  a  vous.     Car  enfin  aujourd'hui 
Si  vous  m'abandonnez,  quel  sera  mon  appuy? 
Sans  parens,  sans  amis,  desolee  et  craintive, 
Reine  long-temps  de  nom,  mais  en  effet  captive, 
Et  veuve  maintenant  sans  avoir  eu  d'espoux, 
Seigneur,  de  mes  malheurs  ce  sont  la  les  plus  doux." 

It  is  not  a  purely  lyric  note,  perhaps,  and  yet  its 
plaintive  simplicity  has  very  much  the  effect  of 
lyricism — at  least  of  the  applied  lyricism  of  the 
drama.  But  I  can  not  hope  to  detect  all  Racine's 
inflections,  much  less  to  illustrate  them.  I  am  satis- 
fied to  show  that  in  introducing  a  certain  lyric  strain 
into  his  tragedy  he  has  provided  it  with  something 
of  the  dramatic  relief  of  which  the  Greeks  were 
possessed  by  virtue  of  their  chorus  and  of  which 
modern  French  tragedy  was  destitute  until  he 
supplied  it. 

11 

Such,  it  appears  to  me,  are  Racine's  principal 
services  toward  the  revival  of  a  classic  tragedy  in 
modern  times ;  —  the  discovery  of  a  congruous  sim- 
plicity of  treatment  by  the  segregation  of  a  syn- 
thetic or  unitary  action,  and  what  is  less  momentous, 
the  restoration  of  dramatic  relief  by  the  application 


234  Romance  and  Tragedy 

of  lyricism  to  tragic  dialogue.    With  these  subsidies 
neo-classic  tragedy  reached  its  highest  point  of  per- 
fection.    That  it  staggered  presently  and  declined 
is  no  detraction  to  its  momentary  excellence;    in 
that  respect  it  was  but  equal  in  fate  with  its  Attic 
prototype.     As   for   its  most  powerful   supporter, 
Racine,  aside  from  his  well-known  intimacy  with 
Euripides,  it  would  be  absurd,  in  view  of  the  merits 
that  I  have  just  mentioned,  to  deny  that  his  sense 
for  Greek  drama  was  finer  than  Corneille's,  who, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  never  completely  successful 
in  shaking  himself  free  of  Spanish  and  romantic 
influence.    And  yet  eager  and  sensitive  though  this 
taste  of  Racine's  was,  there  are  certain  aspects  of 
the  Greek  genius  to  which  he  is  partially  or  wholly 
blind.     That  any  one  with  even  a  tincture  of  the 
great  Athenian  tradition  should  find  the  invention  of 
Eriphile  or  Aricie  a  happy  one,  seems  incredible  — 
though  much  may  be  forgiven  Aricie  as  the  mover  of 
Phedre's  jealousy.    In  particular,  however,  he  seems 
never  to  have  fathomed  the  profound  moral  signifi- 
cance of  the  great  Attic  tragedians.    Perhaps  he  was 
misled  by  his  very  devotion  to  Euripides,  who  is 
generally  disdainful,  if  not  oblivious,  of  the  import 
of  the  material  out  of  which  ^Eschylus  and  Sophocles 
made  so  much.    With  Euripides,  for  example,  Racine 
can  see  no  sense  in  such  a  theme  as  the  sacrifice 
of  Iphigenia.     "  How  shocking,"  he  exclaims,  "  if 
I  had  stained  the  stage  with  the  murder  of  a  person 
so  amiable  and  virtuous!"  —  a  sentiment  that  corre- 
sponds  perfectly   with   the   opinion   of   Euripides' 
heroine, 

naive-cu  5'  6s  euxercu 
daveiv.     Kax&s  irjv  Kpeurcop  y  ko\ws  davelv. 


Racine  235 

But  even  on  those  rare  occasions  when  Euripides 
turns  out  to  be  a  capable  guide,  Racine  is  not  always 
equal  to  following  him,  as  is  conspicuously  the  case 
with  Hippolytus. 

In  all  Euripides'  extant  work,  however,  Hippo- 
lytus is  exceptional  in  being  conceived  most  nearly 
in  the  moral  sense  of  his  great  predecessor,  "  the 
mellow  glory  of  the  Attic  stage."  To  be  sure,  Racine 
owes  a  little  something  in  this  case  to  Seneca  also; 
but  his  debt  to  the  latter  is  merely  that  of  one  crafts- 
man to  another,  and  touches  the  ordonnance  rather 
than  the  inspiration  of  the  drama,  which  derives 
from  Euripides  direct.  A  comparison,  therefore,  of 
Ph&dre  and  Hippolytus  should  be  a  fair  test  of  the 
particulars  in  which  Racine  was  insensible,  as  I 
have  affirmed,  to  the  deeper  significance  of  the  origi- 
nal classics.  How  thoroughly  he  —  and  not  he 
alone  but  others  before  him  —  misunderstood  the 
tragic  logic  of  his  original,  he  confesses  naively  in 
his  preface: 

"  As  regards  Hippolytus,"  he  says,  "  I  had  noticed 
among  the  ancients  that  Euripides  was  reproached  with 
having  represented  him  as  a  philosopher  exempt  from 
every  imperfection  —  a  circumstance  which  made  the 
death  of  this  young  prince  a  subject  of  indignation  rather 
than  of  pity.  I  have  thought  it  necessary  to  give  him 
some  infirmity  which  would  make  him  slightly  culpable 
toward  his  father  without  impairing  the  magnanimity 
with  which  he  spares  the  honour  of  Phedre  and  allows 
himself  to  be  abused  without  accusing  her.  I  call  an 
infirmity  the  passion  which  he  suffers,  in  spite  of  him- 
self, for  Aricie,  the  daughter  and  sister  of  his  father's 
mortal  enemies." 


236  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Need  I  call  attention,  in  passing,  to  the  use  of 
the  terms  infirmity  and  passion  as  confirming  in 
themselves  that  view  of  the  Racinean  tragedy  which 
I  have  been  developing,  a  view  which  in  so  far  I 
think  to  be  consistent  with  the  Greek?  But  this 
matter  apart,  it  is  well  nigh  impossible  to  misinter- 
pret Euripides'  intention  more  egregiously  than  does 
this  quotation.  Hippolytus,  "  a  philosopher  exempt 
from  every  imperfection  "  !  His  own  maker  would 
never  recognize  him.  For  if  one  thing  is  certain,  from 
a  study  not  merely  of  Greek  tragedy  but  of  Greek 
thought  in  general,  it  is  that  Euripides  and  every 
member  of  his  audience  must  have  recognized  the 
protagonist  of  Hippolytus  as  criminal  —  not  in  the 
old  elemental  ^Eschylean  sense,  or  yet  in  the  majes- 
tic, civic  Sophoclean  wise,  but  criminal,  nevertheless, 
with  respect  to  one  of  the  most  fundamental  laws 
for  private  man,  tol  irepl  avdpcoirovs  vofxifxa,  one 
grave  enough  to  be  inscribed  above  the  temple  of 
the  god  at  Delphi,  the  law  of  fxrjdev  ayavor  temper- 
ance, which  seems  almost  to  cover  and  include  the 
two  other  great  maxims  of  Greek  wisdom,  yv&Bi 
aavrbv  and  kclt  avdpuirov  <f>povel,  Know  thyself 
and  Think  as  a  mortal.  A  philosopher  without 
<Ta><f>po(Tvvri  or  prudence.  What  Greek  would  have 
called  such  a  mere  mortal  blameless? 

Now,  this  difference  of  sentiment  is  decisive,  not 
only  for  the  two  plays  under  discussion,  but  also  for 
the  ancient  and  modern  point  of  view  at  large.  And 
the  difference  involves  a  double  change  of  feeling  — 
one  with  regard  to  personal  responsibility  in  general 
and  the  other  with  regard  to  the  virtue  of  temper- 
ance more  particularly.  The  fact  is  that  the  moderns 


Racine  237 

have  pretty  well  lost  the  sense  for  the  moral  qualities 
of  acts  as  such.  Superficially,  it  seems  curious  that 
with  our  brutal  Hegelian  worship  of  the  fait  accompli 
it  should  be  so.  But  this  is  the  very  point.  If  we 
are  willing  to  forgive  success  its  most  heinous 
crimes,  it  is  so  because  the  deed  itself  appears  to  us 
without  decisive  moral  character  of  its  own.  And 
if  we  are  reluctant,  on  the  contrary,  to  condemn  the 
well-meaning  mischief-maker,  it  is  so  for  much  the 
same  reason.  The  attitude  may  be  due  wholly  or 
in  part  to  our  sentimentality.  Our  interest  has  come 
to  be  ethic  rather  than  moral;  it  has  come  to  center 
in  the  characters,  tempers,  and  dispositions  of  men 
and  in  conventions  for  accommodating  and  reconcil- 
ing them,  rather  than  in  the  great  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  humanity  —  the  ay  pcnrTa  KaacfraXr)  6euv 
vofxi/jia.  With  this  shift  of  attention  to  the  ethic 
as  distinguished  from  the  moral  our  final  verdict  is 
swayed  by  the  intention,  for  which  alone  we  hold 
ourselves  answerable,  while  we  have  ceased  to 
acknowledge  a  like  responsibility  for  our  actions. 
With  Pilate  we  wash  our  hands  and  protest  the 
purity  of  our  conscience.  Our  sympathies,  like 
Racine's,  are  with  the  well  intentioned;  and  we 
excuse  the  deed  readily  enough  on  the  strength  of 
the  motive.  Of  course,  this  is  nothing  but  casuistry 
pure  and  simple;  it  is  nothing  but  a  modern  vari- 
ation of  the  Jesuitical  "  direction  of  the  intention," 
whereby  a  man  might  be  absolved  of  the  murder  of 
his  father  provided  only  he  killed  him  not  with  the 
idea  of  committing  assassination  but  merely  of 
securing  his  inheritance.  But  such  is  our  modern 
emotional  reaction;   and  it  has  already  begun  to 


238  Romance  and  Tragedy 

affect  our  administration  of  justice  so  called,  which 
a  sane  instinct  of  self-preservation  has  hitherto  coun- 
selled us  to  leave  intact.  And  since  literature  and 
especially  tragedy  is  appreciated  emotionally,  it  is 
in  such  manner  that  we  apply  ourselves  nowadays 
to  the  appreciation  of  this  kind  of  subject. 

For  the  Greek,  on  the  other  hand,  the  act  as  such 
was  neither  indifferent  nor  negligible  —  on  the  con- 
trary it  had  a  distinct  moral  quality  in  itself.  It 
was  right  or  wrong,  independently  of  intention,  as  it 
did  good  or  harm  —  that  is,  as  it  respected  or  vio- 
lated the  institution  of  the  supreme  human  polity, 
the  ay pairr a  vo/juna;  1  and  as  such  its  initiator  was 
responsible  for  it  —  he  was  wicked  as  it  was  evil, 
innocent  as  it  was  just.  His  intention  was  his  own 
private  affair  —  though  it  might  serve  to  wheedle 
the  pity  of  the  spectators  or  bystanders  or  even  the 
commiseration  of  the  gods,  as  its  theatrical  repre- 
sentation did  in  the  case  of  the  spectators. 

Now,  in  a  good  many  cases,  it  must  be  acknowl- 
edged, there  is  a  practical  difficulty  in  deciding  just 
what  is  the  moral  quality  of  an  act  as  such,  regard- 
less of  motive.  But  it  seemed  fairly  safe  to  assume 
that  those  acts  might  be  reckoned  good  which 
brought  happiness  in  their  train,  and  contrariwise. 
At  least  such  a  belief  appears  to  be  one  of  the 
natural  tenets  of  conscience.  To  be  happy  is  so 
evidently  to  have  done  well  in  life.  In  the  words 
of  Aristotle  "  To  5'ev  £rjv  teal  to  ev  -wpkrreiv 
ravrov     VTo^a.fJifiavovo'L     ra3     evbaifjioveiv'      Here 

1  For  this  conception  of  a  moral  constitution  superior  to  the 
conventions  of  social  ethics,  an  idea  we  appear  to  have  lost, 
see  Xenophon's  Memorabilia.   IV,  iv. 


Racine  239 

is  the  whole  story,  with  the  exception  of  Plato's  wise 
thinking.  To  be  sure,  the  standard  of  happiness  or 
well-being  was  likely  to  be  low  with  the  vulgar  — 
hardly  more  than  worldly  prosperity,  which  is  not 
much  of  a  criterion  either  in  ancient  Attica  or 
modern  America.  And  perhaps,  it  was  this  baseness 
of  ideal  which  led  Euripides  to  criticize  and  even 
condemn  the  old  moral  standard  altogether,  with 
its  identification  of  righteousness  and  well-being,  of 
wickedness  and  adversity,  which  constitutes  Sopho- 
cles' constant  thesis  —  just  as  it  was  the  general 
degeneracy  of  public  opinion  on  the  same  subject 
which  inspired  Plato  in  his  attempt  to  raise  the  ideal 
by  disassociating  happiness  from  all  material  accom- 
paniments whatever  and  by  confining  it  to  the  con- 
templation of  the  supreme  good  —  an  attempt  which 
ultimately  drove  him  to  his  doctrine  of  suprasen- 
sible  ideas  as  the  sole  means  of  rescuing  the  eudae- 
monistic  truism  from  the  dissolving  criticism  of 
a  Callicles  or  a  Thrasymachus  as  well  as  of  a 
Euripides. 

In  the  Hippolytus,  however,  Euripides  does  for 
the  nonce  remain  fairly  loyal  to  the  traditional  be- 
lief in  the  moral  quality  of  actions  as  a  determinant 
of  prosperity  and  misery.  It  is  Hippolytus'  con- 
duct, not  his  motive,  which  renders  him  obnoxious 
to  divine  as  well  as  to  poetic  justice.  The  offense 
which  he  has  committed  unthinkingly  (with  Racine 
we  should  probably  acquit  him  of  ill  doing)  con- 
sists in  his  exclusive  and  hence  excessive  cult  of 
Artemis  to  the  neglect  and  disparagement  of  Aphro- 
dite. Not  that  his  devotion  to  Artemis  is  blame- 
worthy in  itself;  but  Aphrodite  has  her  claims  also. 


240  Romance  and  Tragedy 

And  it  was  the  Greek  notion,  not  that  a  man  might 
acquire  merit  and  plead  exemption  for  the  others 
by  satisfying  this  or  that  claim,  but  that  he  should 
satisfy  all  claims  in  their  due  and  proper  propor- 
tion. In  ^Eschylean  and  Sophoclean  tragedy  this 
conception  is  axiomatic.  The  tragedy  arises  from 
the  protagonist's  inability  or  unwillingness  to  satisfy 
all  just  claims  —  in  the  great  tragedies  from  his 
inability  to  do  so,  as  in  Electra,  Antigone,  and 
(Edipus.  Naturally,  the  more  august  the  claims 
and  the  more  conflicting  and  irreconcilable,  the  more 
stupendous  the  tragedy.  While  the  lesser  trage- 
dies, if  I  may  speak  of  degrees  of  tragedy,  turn, 
not  so  much  on  the  fatal  contrarieties  in  the  nature 
of  things,  like  traps  to  break  the  soul,  as  on  those 
inconsistencies  of  character  in  which  the  protagonist 
seems  less  unable  than  unwilling  to  pay  all  his  debts, 
like  Ajax  by  reason  of  hybris  or  like  Hippolytus 
himself  by  reason  of  anoKaaia  or  indiscipline.  And 
if  nowadays  we  fail  to  recognize  Hippolytus'  fault, 
it  is  because  the  obligation  of  sophrosyne  or  moder- 
ation has  lost  its  authority  either  wholly  or  in  part, 
just  as  is  so  often  the  case  with  one  or  another  of  the 
conflicting  claims  of  Greek  tragedy  —  the  law  of 
talion,  for  instance,  which  disputes  with  filial  piety 
the  Electra  and  the  Coephorce. 

Nor  is  even  the  idea  of  sophrosyne  an  easy  one 
for  the  modern;  even  Plato  devotes  an  entire  dia- 
logue to  the  discussion  of  it  —  inconclusively,  ac- 
cording to  the  critics.  In  this  respect,  however,  I 
can  not  agree  with  them,  since  the  positions  which 
Plato  preempts  in  the  Charmides  are  those  which 
he  finally  occupies  in  the  Republic.    The  only  reason 


Racine  241 

for  their  temporary  relinquishment  in  the  former 
dialogue  is  the  circumstance  that  the  discussion  has 
involved  certain  assumptions  —  principally  that  of 
the  equivalence  of  happiness  and  meeting  your  obli- 
gations —  which  he  will  not  at  the  time  consent  to 
have  taken  for  granted,  though  he  justifies  them 
later.  Hence  it  is  that  I  can  not  look  upon  Plato's 
attempt  at  a  definition  as  a  failure.  At  least  I  can 
give  no  better  account  of  the  matter;  and  what  that 
account  implies  is,  in  sum,  that  sophrosyne  con- 
sists in  taking  one's  own  measure  as  a  man  and 
conforming  to  it  —  the  virtue  to  know  the  measure 
and  to  be  moderate.  Wherefore  my  earlier  remark 
that  the  maxim,  p,y]dev  ayav,  or  Nothing  too  much, 
by  which  the  Greek  aphoristically  translated  the 
idea,  virtually  absorbs  the  other  two  gnomes  in  which 
Greek  wisdom  is  epitomized,  yvoodi  aavrou  and  kclt' 
avdpcoirov  4>povel  —  Know  thyself  and  Think  as 
a  mortal.  In  short,  sophrosyne  was  much  as  I  have 
been  expressing  it,  the  recognition  and  satisfaction 
of  all  just  claims.  And  this  virtue,  in  which  Hip- 
polytus  was  so  sadly  to  seek,  was  the  polar  virtue 
to  the  Greek.  Mere  mortification,  asceticism,  even 
the  excess  or  exaggeration  of  a  single  duty  he  would 
not  have  understood  as  righteousness.  Saintliness 
in  the  sense  of  austerity  is  an  oriental,  not  a  Greek, 
ideal.  Such  a  character,  if  the  latter  could  have 
comprehended  it  at  all,  would  have  struck  him  as 
unnatural,  even  monstrous.  "  '06  yap  avdpwiriK'n 
k<TTiv  17  TOLavrr]v  avaiaQr\oia"  so  says  Aristotle. 
And  he  would  have  expected  to  see  it  draw  the  light- 
ning, just  as  Euripides  has  represented  it  as  doing. 
For  it  is  this  immoderation  on  the  part  of  Hippo- 


242  Romance  and  Tragedy 

lytus  in  slighting  the  natural  human  affinities  or 
inclinations  and  in  unsettling  the  balance  of  satis- 
factions by  discharging  one  set  of  duties  exclusively 
to  the  prejudice  of  all  the  others  —  it  is  this  partial- 
ity which  is  adjudged  a  criminal  arrogance  or  hybris. 
About  his  very  chastity  there  is  designedly  some- 
thing farouche  and  savage  like  that  of  his  tutelary 
divinity,  the  harrier  of  Actaeon.  And  it  is  this  par- 
tiality which  brings  him  within  the  scope  of  Phaedra's 
baleful  influence.  In  this  way  is  vindicated  the  in- 
flexible justice  presiding  over  the  great  tragedy  of 
the  Greeks  —  for  which  reason  I  have  said  that 
however  it  may  be  with  Euripides  in  general,  Hip- 
polytus  at  least  is  in  the  great  tradition. 

All  this  is  so  clear  that  the  wonder  is  how  Racine 
could  have  missed  it.  And  yet  little  or  nothing  of 
it  appears  in  his  Phedre.  The  compromise  whereby 
he  seeks  to  excuse  his  hero's  entanglement  in  the 
coils  of  a  penal  process  by  endowing  him  with  a 
fancy  for  Aricie,  is  too  trifling  to  take  seriously. 
It  is  Phedre's  passion  that  inflames  the  play;  and 
any  mere  affection  is  bound  to  show  pale  and  inef- 
fectual in  the  blaze  of  such  a  conflagration.  At  best, 
Hippolytus'  attachment  for  Aricie  may  be  a  motive 
as  regards  Phedre,  who  is  sensitive  in  just  that  par- 
ticular spot;  but  it  is  no  term  in  his  own  sequence 
of  dramatic  liabilities,  his  to  8l  aXkrjXa,  as  Aristotle 
would  call  it,  for  it  does  not  appear  that  there  is 
any  mesh,  in  the  ancient  sense,  between  his  fate 
and  his  tenderness  for  the  daughter  of  a  hostile 
house.  This  is  not  the  issue;  and  he  is  never  called 
to  account  on  this  score.  On  the  contrary,  so  far 
has  Racine  missed  the  point,  that  this  very  senti- 


Racine  243 

ment  for  another  woman  —  any  woman  would  do 
—  which  Racine  imputes  to  him,  does,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  clear  him  altogether  of  the  charge  on  which 
he  should  by  rights  be  sentenced  and  actually  is 
sentenced  in  the  original  version.  The  Hippolytus 
of  Racine  has  already  paid  his  tribute  to  Venus  and 
no  longer  stands  within  her  danger.  Whether  he  is 
guilty  of  filial  impiety  on  the  score  of  Aricie's  an- 
cestry and  descent  is  another  question  than  the  one 
Racine  has  discussed.  His  injection  of  such  a  mo- 
tive into  his  preface  is  simply  misleading.  As  things 
are,  the  apprehension  of  Hippolytus  by  the  fatal 
snare  is  fortuitous  and  unintelligible.1  In  a  word, 
Hippolytus  is  not  responsible  for  the  plight  in  which 
he  finds  himself.  As  a  result,  his  tragedy  is  harrow- 
ing but  not  edifying.  This  is  not  to  say  that  his 
character  or  his  conduct  is  without  its  interest  or  its 
significance,  but  merely  that  the  drama  lacks  the 
severe  determinism  which  Euripides  has  known  how 
to  impart  to  this  one  subject  at  least. 

But  the  Phedre,  it  may  be  objected,  is  not  Hippol- 
ytus' tragedy  at  all;  and  its  author  has  given  us 
to  understand  as  much  by  the  change  of  title. 
Granted.  Racine's  theater  is  for  the  most  part  a 
tragedie  des  jemmes;  and  it  is  not  Phedre  which  is 
the  exception.  But  this  concession  only  makes  the 
predicament  worse.  With  Phedre  in  the  leading 
role  it  is  without  a  problem,  as  with  Hippolytus  in 
that  part  it  is  without  a  solution.  I  am  still  trying 
to  occupy  the  Greek  point  of  view.  That  I  myself 
am  no  aesthete  or  aesthetician  must  be  abundantly 

1  Compare  Arnauld's  ejaculation,  "  Mais  pourquoi  a-t-il  fait 
Hippolyte  amoureaux?  "    Sainte-Beuve,  Port-Royal,  t.  VI,  p.  130. 


244  Romance  and  Tragedy 

evident  by  this  time;  a  problem  has  no  terrors  for 
me  —  nor  yet  a  thesis  or  a  theme.  I  am  even 
abandoned  enough  to  believe  that  literature  is  all 
the  better  for  something  of  the  sort,  provided  it  is 
humane  and  not  economic  or  sociological  or  an- 
thropological. And  so  I  have  the  effrontery  to  re- 
peat that  with  the  substitution  of  Phedre  for  Hip- 
polytus  in  the  principal  part  the  play  is  destitute 
of  problem,  and  being  without  a  problem,  is  destitute 
of  thesis  likewise.  To  be  sure,  there  is  a  kind  of 
justice  in  Phedre's  fate;  but  it  is  that  obvious, 
anticipated,  matter-of-fact  sort  of  justice  to  which 
the  conscience  does  not  have  to  be  reconciled.  Her 
guilt  is  as  sensible  as  her  sentence.  She  is  a  sinner 
—  the  fascinating  and  sympathetic  sinner  with  whom 
a  long  course  of  modern  literature  has  sufficiently 
familiarized  us.  Her  seduction  is  undeniable.  But 
she  is  plainly  a  dangerous  woman,  a  jemme  jatale; 
and  it  is  better  that  she  should  be  put  away.  And 
in  this  decision  we  acquiesce  without  difficulty. 
There  is  no  ambiguity  in  her  lot,  no  misgiving  in  the 
minds  of  her  judges. 

The  only  compunction  that  her  lot  arouses  has 
to  do  with  the  fate  of  her  victim,  Hippolytus;  and 
to  that  problem,  it  has  been  seen,  no  solution  is 
vouchsafed.  In  short,  the  logic  of  the  tragedy  is 
of  a  thoroughly  modern  type,  of  which  Macbeth 
and  Richard  III  are  the  readiest  examples  —  the 
tragedy  of  wickedness  or  depravity.  And  like  all 
tragedies  of  the  type,  it  is  a  little  awry.  For  what  we 
fail  to  notice  in  our  preoccupation  with  such  pro- 
tagonists is  the  circumstance  that  the  merited  visit- 
ation of  their  iniquities  provides  no  satisfaction  or 


Racine  245 

compensation  for  the  sufferings  of  their  victims  — 
the  endless  procession  of  Duncans,  Banquos,  and 
Lady  Macduffs.    It  is  they  who  rise, 

"  With  twenty  mortal  murthers  on  their  crowns," 

in  speechless  expostulation  with  the  ordering  of  their 
destiny.  What  warrant  can  we  produce  for  their 
ills?  Theirs  is  the  tragedy  —  unrecognized  and  un- 
riddled; for  every  tragedy  is  something  of  a  mys- 
tery as  of  a  sacrament.  No,  such  tragedies  are  out 
of  focus  somehow;  and  the  Greek  with  his  habitual 
tact  avoided  them.  It  is  not  Phedre's  subtle  and 
pervasive  corruption  —  that  only  proclaims  her  a 
moral  outlaw  and  debars  her  from  tragic  citizenship 
altogether,  as  Aristotle  explains  clearly  enough  — 
it  is  Hippolytus'  waywardness  which  makes  the 
Greek  subject: 

Ov8ds  n'ape<TK€L  vvktl  davixaaros  deCbv. 

To  Euripides  the  woman  is  a  malign  influence,  a 
calamity  to  which  Hippolytus'  impudence  exposes 
him.  And  if  in  the  case  of  Racine's  heroine  there 
is  a  trail  of  fatality  lying  across  her  house,  which 
simulates  the  immanence  of  divinity  after  the  Greek 
fashion, 

Ta  yap  eK  irpOTepwv  airXaKrjpaTa  viv 

>     s'    '      ' 
irpos  raao    airayet, 

it  does  little  more,  in  reality,  than  give  depth  to  the 
tableau  and  perspective  to  the  picture.  It  is  physi- 
ological—  an  heredity,  not  a  dispensation;  a  trans- 


246  Romance  and  Tragedy 

mitted  taint  rather  than  a  suspended  judgment 
re-incurred  for  himself  by  every  new  successor  to 
the  title.  Its  moral,  as  distinguished  from  its 
aesthetic,  effect  would  be,  if  anything,  to  raise  a 
doubt  of  her  responsibilty  and  throw  suspicion  upon 
the  criminal  rationale  of  her  catastrophe.  And  while 
it  is  hardly  emphasized  to  that  degree  —  being  in- 
tended, I  suppose,  toward  holding  the  sympathy  of 
the  audience  a  little  more  surely  —  still  in  the  up- 
shot, the  whole  affair,  with  respect  to  Phedre  as 
well  as  Hippolytus,  comes  in  the  modern  version 
to  take  on  the  appearance  of  an  act  of  wantoness 
on  the  part  of  Venus: 

"  Puis  que  Venus  le  veut,  de  ce  sang  deplorable 
Je  peris  la  derniere  et  la  plus  miserable." 

Not  that  Racine's  drama  has  no  sense;  far  from  it. 
But  it  is  not  the  sense  of  the  antique.  And  if  I 
am  perchance  singular  in  preferring  the  thorough 
consequence  and  conclusiveness  of  the  latter's  dia- 
lectic; on  the  other  hand,  I  believe  that  I  am  only 
speaking  in  the  spirit  of  my  time  when  I  add  that 
I  prefer  the  former's  interpretation  of  character  for 
its  inherent  momentousness  and  significance.  In 
spite  of  the  dubiety  and  indecision  of  Racine's 
Providence,  I  must  confess  that  to  me  his  Phedre  is 
more  appealing  than  Euripides',  not  only  in  her 
reticences  and  indiscretions  but  in  that  by  virtue 
of  which  they  subsist  —  her  own  being.  For  after 
all,  how  much  richer  the  character  of  the  former 
than  that  of  the  latter!  And  the  change  of  taste 
or  sentiment,  if  I  am  right  in  my  diagnosis,  is  far 


Racine  247 

from  trivial;  for  it  is  inevitable  that  this  enhance- 
ment of  personality,  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  it, 
should  have  exerted  a  tremendous  influence  upon 
the  modern  treatment,  not  only  of  character  itself, 
but  also  of  the  issues  and  eventualities  of  the  action. 

In  order  to  explain  these  consequences,  however, 
I  must  refer  hurriedly  to  the  intellectual  structure 
of  tragedy  as  far  as  it  furnishes  a  scaffolding  for 
the  problem  which  is  the  peculiar  concern  of  the 
genre.  Universally,  tragedy  would  appear  to  in- 
clude two  components  —  the  "  fable,"  which  rep- 
resents the  fact  upon  which  it  is  founded,  and  the 
"  art,"  whereby  this  raw  material  is  fashioned  into 
drama.  As  far  as  the  subject-matter  goes,  the  senti- 
ment of  tragedy  seems  to  be  aroused  by  the  per- 
ception, in  some  event  or  other,  of  a  dissidence  be- 
tween the  demands  of  conscience  and  the  data  of 
experience  —  between  our  notion  of  justice  or  equity 
and  our  knowledge  of  actuality.  Obviously,  this 
dissidence  must  be  a  serious  one  —  so  serious,  in- 
deed, as  to  upset  momentarily  our  feeling  of  moral 
security  —  to  trouble  and  perplex  and  even  confound 
for  the  time  being  our  intelligence.  This  temporary 
sense  of  queasy  and  vertiginous  insecurity  I  would 
call,  with  Aristotle's  term  catharsis  in  mind,  the 
tragic  qualm.  From  what  precedes  it  is  evident  that 
the  subject  of  tragedy  involves  a  contretemps  —  or 
as  Aristotle  puts  it  for  his  own  stage,  a  metabasis  — 
and  implies  the  agency  of  fortune.  Any  occurrence 
which  meets  these  conditions,  does  in  a  measure  in- 
spire the  onlooker  with  the  crude  sentiment,  and  in 
so  far  raises  the  question,  of  tragedy. 

But  such  a  state  of  consternation  is  intolerable  — 


248  Romance  and  Tragedy 

especially  if  it  is  prevalent,  as  happens  particularly 
whenever  the  tenure  of  life  becomes  generally  pre- 
carious —  in  seasons  of  public  insecurity,  for  ex- 
ample, in  times  of  war  or  pestilence  —  conditions 
under  which  or  the  recollection  of  which  tragedy  is 
most  likely  to  flourish.  In  the  interests  of  sanity, 
then,  it  is  necessary  that  the  reason  should  be  rec- 
onciled to  existence  and  that  the  apprehensions  to 
which  it  is  subjected  by  the  perfidies  of  nature 
should  be  composed  and  tranquillized.  In  other 
words,  if  the  observer  is  to  be  brought  to  acquiesce 
in  the  shocking  terminations  of  tragedy,  he  must 
be  made  to  find  in  the  apparent  miscarriage  of  jus- 
tice which  the  dramatist  has  chosen  for  his  theme 
some  solace  of  a  sort  for  his  own  outraged  sense  of 
propriety.  This  is  the  "  art  "  of  tragedy.  Without 
it  there  is  only  the  representation  of  some  harrow- 
ing and  inscrutable  casuality. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  gravest  of  such 
outrages  occur  in  connection  with  the  conflict  of 
good  and  evil  on  those  occasions  when  the  latter 
seems  to  have  won  an  unwarranted  triumph  over  the 
former  to  the  detriment  of  the  personal  happiness 
or  well-being  of  its  vanquished  representatives. 
Hence  tragedy  has  ever  sought  pretty  much  to  this 
one  kind  of  subject.  It  has  always  been  moral  and 
eudasmonistic.  And  it  has  been  greatest  where  its 
preoccupation  with  this  topic  has  been  most  exclu- 
sive, as  was  the  case  with  the  Attic  drama  of  the 
great  epoch.  Among  moderns  the  New  Englander 
has  had  something  of  the  same  conviction  of  moral 
immanence  which  inspired  ^Eschylus  and  Sophocles. 
For  him  as  for  them  the  world  was  compact  of  good 


Racine  249 

and  evil;  there  was  no  room  for  moral  indifference, 
no  neutral  zone  in  his  universe  —  nothing  but  "  the 
gods  still  sitting  around  him  on  their  thrones,  — 
they  alone  with  him  alone."  But  his  end  was  not 
well-being  but  duty.  And  in  this  intent  he  was  in- 
vulnerable to  adversity,  the  stage-manager  of  the 
tragic  scene.  Nay,  to  the  Puritan  conscience  with 
its  suspicion  of  fortune  and  her  works,  the  very 
name  of  tragedy  was  anathema. 

To  the  Greek,  however,  with  his  moral  and  eudse- 
monistic  leanings  —  nor  should  his  intellectual  and 
inquisitive  temper  be  forgotten  either  —  the  problem 
presented  itself  in  some  such  guise  as  this.  Why 
did  misery  come  to  attach  itself  to  a  sort  of  action 
naturally  calculated  to  ensure  happiness?  I  say 
"  why,"  not  "  how "  advisedly;  for  unlike  the 
modern,  he  was  not  to  be  fobbed  off  with  anything 
less  than  a  reason.  In  other  words,  with  no  discern- 
ible difference  as  between  two  acts  —  or  at  least, 
of  two  acts  equally  laudable  as  to  purpose;  why 
should  the  one  promote  disaster  and  disgrace,  the 
other  prosperity  and  repute?  Or  more  narrowly 
still,  why  in  this  particular  instance,  say,  should  a 
certain  design  which  might  be  predicted  on  general 
principle  and  analogy  to  further  the  advantage  of 
its  author  —  why  should  such  a  course  of  conduct, 
on  the  contrary,  plunge  its  pursuer  into  an  abyss  of 
wretchedness  and  humiliation?  How  was  such 
seeming  perversity  of  circumstance  to  be  explained? 
Such,  I  believe,  was  the  riddle  that  ^Eschylus  and 
Sophocles  set  themselves  to  read.  And  they  solved 
it  by  the  affirmation,  tacit  or  explicit,  of  a  cosmic 
law  of  righteousness,  as  a  trangression  of  which  they 


250  Romance  and  Tragedy 

accounted  every  such  outward  act  a  crime,  reckoning 
its  frustration  and  disgrace  a  legitimate  penalty  of 
wrong-doing. 

Nor  was  this  notion  of  a  supra-mundane  policing 
of  human  activities  singular  to  ^Eschylus  and 
Sophocles.  To  be  sure,  it  had  its  scoffers  like 
Thrasymachus  and  Callicles,  and  its  critics  like 
Euripides.  But  it  was  so  obviously  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  dramatist  was  safe  in  appealing  to 
it  as  the  basis  of  his  solution  and  in  deducing  the 
necessary  corollaries  from  it  acceptably  to  his  pub- 
lic. In  this  way,  by  the  identification  of  adversity 
with  guilt,  he  was  in  a  position  to  explain  the  suffer- 
ings of  his  protagonist  by  holding  him  responsible 
for  the  misconduct  (and  notice  how  easily  our  own 
language  falls  in  with  the  same  kind  of  reasoning)  of 
which  they  were  supposed  to  be  the  consequences 
at  the  same  time  that  he  was  able  to  soften  the 
audience  to  the  proper  degree  of  indulgence  for  the 
sufferer  by  representing  his  trangression  as  uncal- 
culated  and  involuntary.  But  though  as  the  victim 
of  a  contretemps,  he  might  well  be  regarded  with  a 
moderate  pity,  still  as  a  trangressor  and  a  source  of 
impiety  and  pollution,  he  was  an  abomination  and 
an  object  of  horror.  Hence  the  complementary 
emotions  of  pity  and  horror  by  which  Aristotle  de- 
fines tragedy  in  exponents  of  the  action. 

With  the  modern  conceit  of  personality  and  its 
surpassing  importance,  however,  such  a  resolution 
of  the  contrarieties  of  fortune  becomes  impossible. 
What  is  decisive  in  such  an  estimate  of  character 
is  purity  of  motive,  not  precision  of  conduct.  "  In- 
firmity and  misery  do  not,  of  necessity,  imply  guilt. 


Racine  251 

They  approach,  or  recede  from  the  shades  of  that 
dark  alliance,  in  proportion  to  the  probable  motives 
and  propects  of  the  offender  and  to  the  palliations, 
known  and  secret,  of  the  offense."  Such,  in  the 
heart-felt  words  of  De  Quincey  at  the  confessional, 
is  approximately  the  modern  and  romantic  doctrine 
of  responsibilty.  Consistently  with  such  a  view 
a  formal  contravention  of  prescription  can  not  be 
pleaded  in  extenuation  of  that  loss  of  happiness 
to  which  one  is  felt  to  be  entitled  by  virtue  of  such 
merit  as  consists  with  good  intentions.  That  good 
intentions  alone  are  no  guarantee  of  prosperity,  how- 
ever, is  a  depressing  certainty  of  daily  observation. 
With  the  moral  negligibility  of  conduct  the  center 
of  tragedy  has  begun  to  shift,  and  the  old  explana- 
tion is  thrown  out  of  focus.  And  yet  the  radical 
detestation  of  injustice  persists  unaltered  —  only  it 
is  now  impossible  to  palliate  the  miscarriage  by  con- 
victing the  sufferer  of  involuntary  culpability;  he 
is  exonerated  by  the  sense  of  his  personal  worthiness. 
To  all  appearance,  virtue  has  simply  lost  the  partie; 
and  there  is  nothing  left  for  tragedy  but  to  affix  her 
signature  to  the  humiliating  admission. 

And  yet  there  does  remain  one  way  of  escaping 
this  recantation  of  our  most  earnest  professions. 
While  conceding,  as  now  seems  unavoidable,  that 
there  is  but  "  one  event  to  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked,"  the  dramatist  may  still  claim  a  spiritual 
superiority  for  the  former,  not  only  in  an  equality 
of  fortune,  but  also  in  an  inequality  of  fortune  which 
is  all  to  the  advantage  of  the  latter.  In  other  words, 
he  may  still  solicit  and  win  approval  for  a  certain 
sort  of  character  in  the  face  of  its  material  collapse. 


252  Romance  and  Tragedy 

In  this  manner  it  is  possible  to  restore  that  confi- 
dence in  the  primacy  of  the  individual  conscience 
by  which  the  modern  sets  such  store.  In  spite  of 
an  ineptitude  for  affairs,  an  inadequacy  to  the  situ- 
ation which  the  ancient  would  have  construed  as 
the  infatuation  of  guilt,  Hamlet,  Othello,  and  Lear 
are  esteemed  to  have  the  nobler  part  for  all  their 
calamities,  as  contrasted  with  the  wholly  despic- 
able conspiracy  to  which  each  falls  a  victim.  And 
so  this  assertion  of  the  sentimental  preeminence  of 
an  approved  character,  irrespective  of  its  ends  and 
activities,  has  come  —  thanks  to  its  conformity  with 
our  modern,  and  perhaps  I  should  add  our  Chris- 
tian, prepossession  —  to  form  the  resolution  of 
modern  tragedy,  of  the  neo-classic  as  well  as  the 
romantic. 

That  such  a  resolution  is  emotional  rather  than 
rational  can  not  be  disputed.  All  too  obviously  it 
supplies  no  genuine  solution  of  the  mystery  of  good 
and  evil,  happiness  and  misery  which  has  vexed  the 
heart  of  man  for  so  many  centuries.  It  is  but  a 
compromise  at  best;  and  as  such  it  is  an  inherent 
defect  of  modern  tragedy.  Nevertheless  there  are 
two  remarks  to  be  made  in  extenuation.  In  the  first 
place,  the  immediate  appeal  of  tragedy  is  emotional 
any  way;  and  such  a  reconciliation,  though  failing 
to  satisfy  mature  reflection,  does  at  least  offer  tem- 
porary alleviation  of  the  heart-ache  that  accom- 
panies the  spectacle  of  such  enormities  as  make  the 
subject-matter  of  tragedy.  While  further,  since  it 
it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  a  thoroughly  congruous 
art  of  an  age  without  consistency,  it  is  only  by  some 
such  compromise  that  the  dramatist  can  hope  to 


Racine  253 

mediate  between  the  warring  tendencies  of  our  post- 
renaissance  mood.  In  an  order  purely  physical,  for 
example,  it  is  inconceivable  that  righteousness 
should  influence  our  material  well-being  in  one  way 
or  the  other.  Or  else,  if  a  man's  fortunes  are  to  be 
taken  as  the  index  of  his  deserts,  as  antiquity  was 
prone  to  believe,  then  the  protestations  of  his  own 
conscience  are  unreliable  as  against  the  evidences 
of  adversity.  But  either  of  these  alternatives  we 
are  loath  to  embrace.  The  former  implies  an  in- 
sensible determinism;  the  latter  a  moral  causation. 
And  in  our  reluctance  we  are  driven  to  make  the 
benefits  and  dignities  of  virtue,  as  of  character, 
largely  subjective  and  intimate  —  an  affair  of  senti- 
ment pretty  exclusively. 

As  a  result  of  this  expedient  of  reconciling  the 
heart,  irrespective  of  the  head,  to  the  contingencies 
of  the  denouement  or  catastrophe,  there  has  ensued 
a  momentous  change  of  attitude  toward  the  protag- 
onist. I  speak  of  the  denouement  or  catastrophe  as 
a  contingency  deliberately;  for  in  this  light  we  are 
bound  to  consider  it,  ex  hypothesi,  on  the  strength 
of  its  hideous  disproportion  with  the  presumptive 
innocency  of  the  victim.  At  least,  since  the  "  hero  " 
is  no  longer  to  be  held  to  strict  accountability  for 
his  conduct  to  the  extent  of  sharing  impartially  in 
the  obloquy  of  his  misdeeds,  there  is  no  choice  save 
to  call  the  catastrophe  morally  indifferent  whatever 
his  instrumentality  in  its  production.  As  Othello 
and  Hamlet  are  written,  it  is  impossible  to  visit  upon 
the  heads  of  the  titular  characters  the  full  measure 
of  abhorrence  proper  to  their  infamies  as  such. 
Taken  in  themselves,  the  crazing  of  Ophelia  by  the 


254  Romance  and  Tragedy 

meditative  Dane  and  the  smothering  of  Desdemona 
by  the  valiant  Moor  are  not  exploits  particularly 
creditable  to  their  perpetrators.  And  yet  in  spite  of 
the  egotistic  squeamishness  of  the  one  and  the  jeal- 
ous credulity  of  the  other  character,  we  are  induced 
to  shift  the  blame  from  their  shoulders  to  the  in- 
stigation of  circumstance  and  the  connivance  of 
opportunity  —  agencies  admirably  symbolized  in  the 
Phedre,  for  instance,  by  the  person  of  the  nurse. 
Herein,  obviously,  consists  the  utility  of  the 
"  villain  "  ;  he  lets  the  "  hero  "  out.  For  notice  that 
with  this  gentry  Sophocles  and  ^Eschylus,  whose 
protagonists  bear,  like  (Edipus,  the  opprobrium  of 
their  own  mischief,  have  no  traffic.  And  though 
there  are  foreshadowings  of  the  villain,  in  the  pres- 
ent acceptation  of  the  word,  in  Euripides  as  a  scape- 
goat for  some  of  the  interesting  adventuresses,  like 
Medea,  for  whom  that  author  had  such  a  particular 
tenderness;  yet  the  role  owes  its  sinister  prominence 
to  the  exigencies  of  the  sentimental  reconciliation 
and  the  modern  tragedian's  efforts  to  save  his 
hero's  face  at  all  odds  —  an  effort  in  which  he  is 
inevitably  led  to  develop  the  ethical  rather  than  the 
moral  possibilities  of  his  action,  treating  it  as  rev- 
elatory of  the  complexity  and  richness  of  the  pro- 
tagonist's temperament,  which  to  our  notion  con- 
stitutes its  worth  and  value. 

As  a  result  of  these  conditions,  then,  the  modern 
protagonist  or  hero  is  invariably  a  "  sympathetic  " 
character.  If  he  were  not  —  if  he  were  to  forfeit 
the  indulgence  of  the  audience,  he  would  lose  what 
standing  he  has  and  become  identified  with  his  own 
performances.     In  that  event,  being  as  he  is  the 


Racine  255 

source  of  irreparable  injury  to  others  no  less  than 
to  himself,  the  illusion  of  his  merits  would  vanish 
and  his  tragedy  would  turn  into  the  exceptional 
type  of  which  I  have  already  spoken  as  the  tragedy 
of  depravity  or  turpitude,  exemplified  by  Macbeth 
and  Richard  III  and  of  which,  as  it  is  anomalous, 
I  need  speak  no  further  in  this  connection.  Or  else, 
the  audience,  deprived  of  their  faith  in  his  innate 
nobility,  even  if  they  succeeded  by  a  miracle  of 
subtlety  in  retaining  a  purely  intellectual  confidence 
in  his  own  conscientiousness  despite  the  damning 
evidence  of  his  own  misdoing,  would  remain  unrec- 
onciled to  the  hardship  of  his  lot,  and  the  tragedy 
itself  as  "  art  "  would  be  a  signal  failure.  There  are 
no  two  ways  about  it:  while  the  Greek  protagonist 
might  be  represented  as  simply  infatuate,  the  una- 
voidable outcome  of  the  sentimental  reconciliation 
is  the  "  sympathetic  "  protagonist. 

I  can  not  disguise  that  in  all  this  there  is  more 
than  a  trace  of  casuistry.  But  what  then?  Such 
is  modern  sentiment,  romantic  even  at  its  best  and  in 
spite  of  itself;  and  since  art  must  comply  with  the 
convictions  of  its  devotees,  such  is  modern  tragedy. 
In  contrast  with  the  classic  Greek  it  takes  the  hero 
subjectively,  as  he  is  reflected  in  the  mirror  of  self- 
consciousness,  and  not  objectively,  as  he  would  im- 
press the  dispassionate  observer.  It  does  not  con- 
sider him  an  example  but  an  exception,  unique  and 
individual.  It  is  less  concerned  to  bring  him  to  trial 
as  the  citizen  of  a  moral  polity  whose  constitution 
he  is  under  suspicion  of  having  violated  than  to 
plead  in  his  behalf  the  privilege  of  an  unnaturalized 
sojourner  in  a  strange  land  with  whose  institutions, 


256  Romance  and  Tragedy 

customs,  and  manners  he  is  unfamiliar  and  to  whose 
jurisdiction  he  is  not  properly  subject.  So  patently 
unadapted  are  Hamlet  and  Othello  to  their  milieu 
that  it  is  rather  naive  to  express  surprise  at  the 
havoc  they  play  with  it.  In  this  respect  modern 
tragedy  is  uniformly  confidential  and  biographical 
—  not  common  and  public,  not  historical.  It  em- 
bodies a  distinct  and  hitherto  unstudied  variety  of 
the  "  pathetic  fallacy."  Consistently,  it  has  ceased 
little  by  little,  notwithstanding  its  early  deference 
for  tradition,  to  draw  its  material  from  generally 
accessible  and  verifiable  sources,  and  has  taken 
more  and  more  to  substituting  invention  for  inter- 
pretation. As  far  as  the  results  go,  it  is  not  wholly 
inexcusable  to  distrust  the  sincerity,  if  not  the 
legitimacy,  of  "  private  "  tragedy  altogther.  For 
once  the  dramatist  has  begun  to  rid  himself  of  fidel- 
ity to  the  record  written  or  oral,  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  him  from  abusing  his  audience's  sym- 
pathy "  at  discretion  "  to  the  confusion  of  all  moral 
values  whatsoever.  Indeed,  he  is  bound  by  the 
nature  of  the  case  to  do  a  certain  amount  of  violence 
to  the  judgment  of  his  audience.  Euripides  himself 
has  shown  how  the  trick  may  be  turned  in  his 
Medea,  and  Racine  has  not  been  slow  to  imitate 
him  in  Phedre.  I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
Racine  has  passed  the  bounds  permissible  to  his 
genre,  but  I  can  not  deny  that  he  has  pushed  our 
indulgence  for  his  heroine  to  something  of  an  ex- 
treme. And  if  the  "  sympathetic  "  hero  is  capable 
of  such  license  while  still  subject  to  the  authority 
of  legend  or  notorious  fable,  what  limit  to  his  ex- 
cesses when  these  last  fetters  are  finally  removed? 


Racine  257 

The  answer,  I  suspect,  is  Ibsen.  How  many  of  the 
tremendous  figures  that  dominated  the  Attic  stage 
in  the  heyday  of  its  splendour  are  "  sympathetic  "  ? 
Not  Orestes,  nor  Agamemnon,  nor  (Edipus  Tyran- 
nus,  nor  Electra,  nor  Clytemnestra.  Prometheus 
and  Antigone?  Or  do  they  only  seem  so  to  us? 
For  it  is  significant  that  these  two  pretty  nearly  ex- 
haust the  unqualified  enthusiasm  of  the  modern  for 
ancient  tragedy.  I  omit  to  mention  Philoctetes  and 
(Edipus  Coloneus  because  the  "  happy "  tragedy 
in  which  they  figure  is  as  anomalous  to  our  experi- 
ence as  the  tragedy  of  evil  or  turpitude  was  to  that 
of  the  Greek,  and  hence  lends  itself  as  little  to  com- 
parison. But  if  Antigone  and  Prometheus  were, 
in  reality,  "  sympathetic  "  characters  originally,  they 
at  least  were  so  by  disposition,  not  by  theatrical 
necessity,  as  is  the  case  with  their  younger  col- 
leagues. As  for  Hamlet,  I  sometimes  wonder,  for 
example,  whether  he  was  actually  so  "  sympathetic  " 
as  he  is  painted.  The  remark  is  fatuous,  of  course, 
since  Hamlet  is  just  what  Shakespeare  has  made 
him,  no  more,  no  less.  But  it  serves  to  illustrate  the 
point,  if  the  point  is  worth  making  at  all,  since  it 
assumes  an  effect  entirely  at  variance  with  Aris- 
totle's first-hand  impression.  On  the  authority  of 
this  one  deponent,  whose  competence  I  fancy  no 
one  will  question,  the  Greek  protagonist,  while  lay- 
ing claim  to  the  pity  of  the  audience  for  his  reverses, 
was  effectually  disqualified  as  a  "  sympathetic " 
character  by  the  horror  that  he  excited  by  his  mis- 
deeds. The  evidence  is  conclusive:  the  "  sympa- 
thetic "  protagonist,  with  the  sentimental  reconcil- 
iation of  which  he  is  an  outcome,  is  a  persistent 


258  Romance  and  Tragedy 

characteristic  of  modern,  in  contradistinction  from 
ancient  tragedy. 

With  these  preliminaries  disposed  of,  it  is  pos- 
sible to  examine  the  specific  physiognomy  of 
Racine's  characters  a  little  more  closely.  From  this 
brief  survey  I  need  hardly  apologize  for  omitting 
Alexandre  and  La  Theba'idc  as  well  as  Esther;  the 
reasons  for  doing  so  are  sufficiently  obvious.  Atha- 
lie,  too,  well  worth  consideration  as  it  is  in  itself, 
seems  to  lie  outside  of  its  author's  professional 
career.  Racine's  tragedy  I  have  already  called  a 
tragedie  des  jemmes.  It  is  not  merely  that  so  many 
of  his  title  roles  are  filled  by  women  — Andromaque, 
Berenice,  Iphigenie.  Phedre;  yes,  and  Athalie,  for 
that  matter;  or  that  women  so  uniformly  preempt 
the  center  of  his  stage.  It  is  that  women  come  so 
near  to  exhausting  his  interest  and  invention. 
Britannkus,  to  be  sure,  looks  like  an  exception; 
but  even  in  this  case,  though  Junie  may  not  be 
thoroughly  engrossing  on  her  own  account,  she  is 
at  least  responsible  for  springing  the  trap.  While 
as  for  Bajazet  and  Mithridate,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  it  is  Roxane  who  animates  the  former  as  it 
is  Monime  who  inspires  the  latter. 

In  revenge,  his  typical  hero  is  hardly  more  than 
an  idealized  courtier  —  not  unhandsome,  it  is  to 
be  presumed,  and  gallant,  but  rather  insipid  for  a 
palate  accustomed  to  the  gusto  of  Shakespeare's 
male  parts  —  the  Wertherean  Britannicus;  the  com- 
plaisant Bajazet;  Achille,  le  beau  sabreur;  Hip- 
polyte,  the  petit-maitrc.  Even  Titus  has  about  him 
a  little  something  of  the  operatic  potentate: 


Racine  259 

"  Cette  poupre,  cet  or,  que  rehaussoit  sa  gloire, 
Et  ces  lauriers  encor  temoins  de  sa  victoire." 

And  while  it  is  a  flight  of  the  fancy  to  think  of 
substituting  one  for  another,  still  they  are  all 
pretty  much  of  a  piece.  No  doubt,  there  is  a  kind 
of  disarming  candour  about  Hippolyte  —  he  is  so 
clearly  no  match  for  all  these  designing  women, 
not  the  least  dangerous  of  whom  is  the  nurse  — 
which  sets  him  a  little  apart;  as  is  also  true  of  the 
frank  impetuosity  of  the  young  Achille.  But  Ba- 
jazet,  or  even  Britannicus,  when  stripped  of  his 
theatrical  trappings,  is  little  better  than  a  self- 
confessed  futility. 

Perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  expect  of  an  author  any 
way  that  he  should  be  able  to  keep  the  object  of  a 
woman's  infatuation  from  looking  a  little  fatuous 
himself.  But  to  these  statements  one  reservation 
at  least  must  be  made  in  favour  of  that  wily  and 
bellicose  old  barbarian,  Mithridate,  the  most  virile 
full-length  that  Racine  has  drawn;  for  Nero's  vil- 
lainy, as  I  have  already  noticed,  is  hardly  a  mascu- 
line villainy  as  yet  —  it  retains  too  much  of  the 
effeminacy  of  adolescence.  Aside  from  the  domin- 
ating and  sinister  figure  of  Mithridate,  the  strongest- 
featured  of  all  the  men  are  Orestes  and  Pyrrhus; 
and  it  is  remarkable  that  until  the  next  to  the  last 
scene  of  the  third  act  Andromaque  is  comedy  — 
partly,  I  suppose,  on  account  of  the  fact  that  it  is 
something  of  a  coup  d'essai,  but  mainly,  because 
of  the  accentuated  characterization  of  these  two 
principals,  whom  even  the  passion  that  makes  the 
women  tragic,  only  renders  a  little  ridiculous.     At 


260  Romance  and  Tragedy 

all  events,  Racine  never  tried  the  experiment  again; 
and  from  this  evidence  —  negative,  I  admit  —  is  it 
fanciful  to  conclude  that  he  distrusted  his  ability  to 
individualize  his  leading  men  very  strongly  without 
caricature  and  comedy? 

To  justify  the  propriety  of  such  forbearance  on 
his  part  a  brief  digression  is  necessary.  It  is  no 
secret  that  the  more  academic  French  critics  have 
associated  the  perfection  of  their  tragedy  with  the 
retrenchment  from  serious  drama  of  two  elements 
—  romance  and  comedy.  With  Racine's  simplifi- 
cation of  the  action,  the  plot  as  such  was  cleared  of 
the  last  shred  of  the  romance  still  so  pronounced 
in  the  Cid  and  Rodogune,  and  indeed,  everywhere 
in  Corneille.  And  if  the  result  is  yet  to  some  ex- 
tent romantic  by  reason  of  the  sentimental  resolu- 
tion, the  blemish  is  due  to  the  circumstance  that 
even  Racine  is  a  modern,  and  the  modern  is  incur- 
ably romantic  by  position.  After  all  that  has  hap- 
pened in  the  last  two  thousand  years  it  is  idle  to 
require  a  perfectly  clean  conscience  even  of  those 
who  have  done  their  best  to  expiate  the  sins  of  their 
fathers  and  to  purge  their  souls  of  the  Asiatic  and  the 
mediaeval.  As  for  the  comic  element,  that  had 
ceased  to  be  much  of  an  impediment  to  tragedy 
already.  And  yet  while  the  playwright  of  Louis 
XIV's  time  was  in  no  great  danger  of  losing  his 
footing  altogether,  nevertheless  he  did  slip  occasion- 
ally, even  though  he  might  save  himself  from  actu- 
ally falling.  At  least,  he  has  here  and  there  shaken 
his  reader's  confidence  in  his  infallibility,  like  Ra- 
cine himself  in  Andromaque  and  Moliere  in  Le  Mis- 
anthrope.   To  be  sure,  the  outcome  is  unclouded; 


Racine  261 

the  final  impression  of  Andromaque  is  unambigu- 
ously tragic,  as  that  of  Le  Misanthrope  is  comic. 
But  there  are  moments  of  dubiety,  where  the  judg- 
ment is  befuddled  —  just  how  badly  the  reader 
must  decide  for  himself.  And  then,  aside  from  these 
domestic  difficulties,  whose  seriousness  it  is  hard 
for  an  outsider  to  estimate  exactly  —  the  genre 
tranche  has  been  an  embarrassment  to  the  French- 
man in  another  fashion.  On  the  one  hand,  it  has 
troubled  his  appreciation  of  "  mixed "  tragedy, 
like  the  Shakespearean,  which  partly  on  this  ac- 
count Voltaire  includes  in  a  common  damnation 
with  the  Greek  as  hopelessly  barbarous.  And  on 
the  other  hand,  it  has  obstructed  the  understanding 
of  "  pure  "  tragedy,  like  Racine's,  on  the  part  of 
the  English,  who  are  inclined  to  resent  the  abate- 
ment of  confusion  as  a  violence  to  nature  and 
another  arbitrary  and  crippling  convention.  If  I 
embark,  then,  upon  a  hasty  discussion  of  the  rela- 
tions between  tragedy  and  comedy,  I  do  so  in  the 
hope  of  completing  the  definition  of  pure  tragedy, 
since  I  have  already  taken  account  of  the 
other  formally  objectionable  element,  romance,  in 
explaining  the  nature  of  the  simple  or  synthetic 
action. 

In  such  an  inquiry  into  the  applications  of  com- 
edy, sketchy  though  that  inquiry  may  be,  it  is  only 
fair  that  we  should  place  ourselves  for  the  time 
being  at  the  French  point  of  view.  If  the  French 
critic  objects  to  the  admixture  of  comedy  with  his 
tragedy,  it  is  obviously  neither  Shakespearean  nor 
Aristophanic  comedy  that  he  has  in  mind,  but  com- 
edy after  his  own  kind.     Of  this  kind  Moliere  is 


262  Romance  and  Tragedy 

the  natural  representative;   and  accordingly  to  his 
line  the  following  remarks  are  roughly  hewn. 

Considered  in  this  light,  the  distinction  between 
comic  and  tragic  is  not  particularly  difficult.  It  is 
mainly  a  matter  of  mood.  Just  as  the  ancient 
artificer  might  turn  his  fabrics  into  a  tragic  or  a 
comic  mask  at  will,  so  the  dramatist  may  give 
a  situation  a  tragic  or  a  comic  turn  indifferently. 
To  this  effect  Vinet  recalls  that  the  subject  of 
Mithridate  is  identical  with  that  of  L'Avare,  the 
fifth  scene  of  the  third  act  of  the  former  corre- 
sponding with  the  third  scene  of  the  fourth  act 
of  the  latter.  In  Walpole's  familiar  phrase,  life 
is  a  tragedy  to  him  who  feels,  a  comedy  to  him 
who  thinks.  The  subject-matter  is  the  same,  what 
differs  is  the  temper.  The  one  type  addresses 
the  heart,  the  other  the  head.  The  emotions  aroused 
by  tragedy  may  vary  widely  —  as,  within  our  scope, 
between  that  of  ancient  and  modern  times;  the 
passions  of  the  ancient  theater  being  dominated  by 
pity  and  horror,  the  agitations  of  the  modern  stage 
being  assuaged  by  sympathy  or  compassion.  But 
whatever  the  specific  impression  may  be,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  tragedy  undertakes  to  arouse  the  sensi- 
bilities in  one  way  or  another.  Comedy,  on  the 
contrary,  is  essentially  intellectual.  Its  character- 
istic is  curiosity;  and  curiosity  is  passionless  and 
impartial.  A  comedy,  in  the  French  taste,  is  a  dis- 
interested study  of  human  nature,  a  sort  of  critical 
vivisection,  wherein  sentiment  is  misplaced.  Once 
excite  the  audience  to  indignation  or  indulgence 
in  respect  of  the  characters,  and  comedy  is  at  an 
end;   the  play  becomes  a  melodrama.    This  is  the 


Racine  263 

reason  that  Le  Misanthrope  seems  to  totter  on  the 
verge  of  tragedy;  Alceste  is  so  constantly  on  the 
point  of  conciliating  the  spectators'  good  will.  At 
least,  such  appears  to  be  its  effect  upon  the  Eng- 
lish reader,  whose  tolerance  of  eccentricity  has 
aroused  the  Frenchman's  traditional  suspicion  of 
his  complete  sanity.  And  indeed,  there  is  not  a 
little  in  the  comic  spirit  to  make  it  appear  malicious 
and  inquisitive  in  the  eyes  of  the  sentimental 
humanitarian. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  have  an  eye  to  what 
seems  to  me  the  root  of  the  whole  difficulty  —  I 
mean  the  confounding  of  comedy  with  humour. 
Properly  understood  and  discriminated,  humour  ap- 
peals to  the  feelings.  It  recognizes  the  frailties  and 
foibles  of  human  nature,  not  as  a  subject  of  interest 
to  the  curiosity,  but  as  a  subject  of  interest  to  the 
sympathies,  as  so  many  evidences  of  a  common 
humanity.  One  may  view  the  weaknesses  of  a  friend 
with  amusement,  but  one's  smile  is  neither  indiffer- 
ent nor  unkindly;  indeed,  it  may  be  deprecatory  or 
even  rueful.  This  is  the  mood  of  the  great  English 
humorists  like  Dickens  and  Thackeray.  In  reality, 
humour  is  a  partition  of  the  pathetic;  for  after  all, 
what  difference  does  it  make  whether  one's  affections 
express  themselves  in  laughter  or  tears?  The  point 
is  that  we  are  moved  at  all,  so  that  in  this  sense  the 
source  of  one  and  the  other,  of  humour  and  of 
pathos,  might  justly  be  grouped  together  under  a 
single  designation  as  the  touching.  On  the  contrary, 
comedy,  being  naturally  unfeeling,  is,  properly,  no 
less  insensible  to  mirth  than  to  grief.  Stendhal 
complains,  rather  naively,  that  there  is  so  little  fun 


264  Romance  and  Tragedy 

in  Moliere  and  other  approved  comedians  of  his 
country  —  and  so  much  that  is  merely  "  un  rire  par 
scandale  "  and  impertinent.  At  a  performance  of 
Tartu ffe  on  December  4,  1822,  in  which  he  saw 
Mademoiselle  Mars,  the  audience,  so  he  records, 
laughed  only  twice,  and  then  negligibly.  "  On  n'a 
ri"  he  says,  "  le  4  decembre."  But  surely,  Stendhal 
is  wrong  in  trying  to  use  this  circumstance  to 
Moliere's  disparagement.  That  he  does  so,  goes  to 
show  that,  like  most  romanticists,  he  had  little  relish 
for  the  comic  as  such.  As  long  as  the  curiosity  is 
interested  and  the  intelligence  is  busied  —  as  long 
as  the  complicated  motives  of  human  action  are 
unravelled,  with  all  their  contradictions  and  incon- 
sistencies, for  the  entertainment  of  the  intellect;  so 
long  are  the  general  conditions  of  comedy  satisfied. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  the  tone  of  such  comedy  is 
realistic  and  conscientious.  It  is  as  serious  in  its 
own  way  as  tragedy.  The  difficulty  is  that  while 
tragedy  finds  a  relief  from  its  excesses  in  the  pur- 
gation of  the  passions  or  otherwise,  comedy  has 
none,  and  lacking  such  an  outlet,  is  liable  to  become 
melancholic  and  atrabiliary.  For  such  a  one-sided 
preoccupation  with  human  inconsequence  as  comedy 
demands  of  its  practitioners,  must  result,  at  best, 
in  a  qualified  contempt  for  the  race;  at  worst,  in  a 
kind  of  moral  hypochondria,  like  that  from  which 
Moliere  himself  is  said  to  have  suffered  during  his 
later  years. 

For  these  reasons  it  is  evident  that  humour,  on 
the  one  side,  is  not  necessarily  incompatible  with 
tragedy.  As  it  is  itself  emotional  and  in  so  far 
pathetic  or  affecting,  it  may,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 


Racine  265 

be  employed  to  reinforce  a  tragic  effect,  particularly 
in  conjunction  with  pathos  in  the  narrower 
modern  sense,  provided  it  is  not  discordant  with 
the  key  in  which  the  passage  is  pitched.  To  this  end 
it  has  been  used  by  all  romantic  playwrights  —  I 
fancy,  without  exception.  It  has  even  been  made 
a  part  of  the  romantic  propaganda,  as  witness  Victor 
Hugo  and  Friedrich  Schlegel  and  Stendhal  just  cited. 
Unhappily  for  its  own  credit  —  for  there  is  some- 
thing peculiarly  unpalatable  in  misdirected  or  ill- 
judged  pleasantry  —  it  has  not  always  been  handled 
with  discretion  even  by  first-rate  genius.  The 
grave-yard  scene  in  Hamlet  has  shocked  too  many 
judges  of  taste  to  be  wholly  exonerated  of  offense. 
But  though  romantic  abuses  of  this  sort  may  have 
brought  the  humorous  into  temporary  disrepute 
with  a  certain  class  of  fastidious  critics,  there  is 
no  gainsaying  that  it  has  received  the  stamp  of 
classical  approval;  it  is  used  by  ^schylus  and 
Sophocles,  to  say  nothing  of  Euripides,  as  well  as  by 
Shakespeare,  though  much  more  sparingly  and  tact- 
fully, and  in  general  though  not  always,  in  connec- 
tion with  minor  characters.  Nor  are  there  wanting 
touches  of  it  in  Racine,  in  spite  of  his  habitual 
severity. 

In  so  far  the  romanticists  are  in  the  right:  humour 
has  an  indisputable  place  in  tragedy.  With  comedy, 
however,  in  its  pure  idea  as  represented  by  Moliere 
—  and  it  is  in  some  such  sense  that  Moliere's  coun- 
trymen must  be  supposed  to  conceive  it  —  the  case 
is  otherwise.  Since  its  mood  is  irreconcilable  with 
that  of  tragedy,  there  can  be  no  commerce  between 
them.     We  can  not  expect  an  audience  to  bewail 


266  Romance  and  Tragedy 

the  plight  in  which  the  characters  find  themselves 
and  at  the  same  time  to  preserve  an  attitude  of 
nonchalant  detachment  as  concerns  their  reaction 
to  those  stimuli.  It  was  not  without  reason  that 
the  Greek  tragedian  was  so  scrupulous  to  neutra- 
lize curiosity  of  any  kind  on  the  part  of  his  public 
even  at  the  cost  of  suspense  and  intrigue.  Not 
only  was  he  content  with  well-known  subjects,  but 
he  would  not  infrequently  go  out  of  his  way  to  fore- 
stall a  doubtful  denouement.  Like  the  modern 
dramatic  purists,  as  we  may  think  of  them  for  con- 
venience, he  was  up  in  arms  at  the  mere  suspicion 
of  a  comic  encroachment  upon  the  confines  of  his 
special  province. 

Now,  one  of  the  most  effective  of  comic  motives, 
as  I  have  already  implied,  consists  in  the  elaboration 
of  the  characteristic.  Intensive  individualization 
is  an  invariable  accompaniment  of  comedy.  Com- 
pare Moliere  with  our  own  Sheridan.  While  the 
latter's  witticisms  are  amazingly  funny  without 
much  regard  to  the  speaker  —  in  fact,  it  is  related 
of  Sheridan  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  shifting 
his  speeches  about  more  or  less  capriciously; 
Moliere's  are  so  thoroughly  in  character  as  to  take 
their  point  solely  from  their  appositeness  in  this  one 
respect,  and  to  become  dull  and  meaningless  in  the 
mouth  of  another.  The  more  intensely  a  character 
is  individualized,  the  more  completely  he  is  singled 
out  and  separated  from  others  who  resemble  him 
superficially,  and  the  farther  he  is  removed  from 
common  interests  and  associations.  His  most  dis- 
tinctive traits  are  those  that  are  peculiar  to  him 
alone;  and  they  are  bound  to  be  "  unsympathetic," 


Racine  267 

if  not  actually  "  antipathetic  ";  we  can  like  others 
only  in  as  far  as  we  are  like  them.  Let  the  drama- 
tist, then,  individualize  his  protagonist  to  a  degree 
by  emphasizing  his  peculiarities,  and  he  becomes  a 
subject  of  quizzical  scrutiny  as  far  as  he  continues 
to  hold  the  attention;  for  it  requires  a  considerable 
amount  of  mental  concentration  to  retain  any  in- 
terest at  all  in  such  a  character.  The  very  analysis, 
too,  which  is  responsible  for  his  exhibition,  demands 
a  cool  and  dispassionate  exercise  of  the  intellect 
for  its  appreciation.  While,  in  addition,  since  our 
peculiarities  are  usually  ridiculous  to  others  —  "  For 
anything  I  can  see,"  says  Dr.  Johnson,"  all  for- 
eigners are  fools  "  —  the  process  of  segregating  the 
character,  in  converting  him  into  an  oddity,  has 
made  him  a  fair  mark  for  the  raillery  of  the 
beholders. 

Hence  the  more  minute  the  characterization  of 
a  play,  the  farther  that  play  leans  toward  comedy 
and  away  from  tragedy,  so  that  the  characters  of 
tragedy  are  always  the  more  general  and  represen- 
tative, or  "  universal.'  While  comedy  is  all  for 
the  idiosyncrasy,  tragedy  seeks  the  mediating  term, 
the  principle  that  relates  all  the  members  into  an 
order  and  brings  them  under  the  rule  of  their  kind. 
The  Misanthrope  is  not  mere  misanthropy,  as  re- 
volted by  the  insincerity  of  society,  but  an  ex- 
ception who  has  fallen  into  the  wiles  of  a  heartless 
coquette,  the  embodiment  of  all  the  falsity  for  which 
he  detests  his  fellows.  L'Avare,  likewise,  is  the 
comedy,  not  of  avarice,  but  of  the  eccentric  miser 
involved  in  the  extravagance  of  love.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  tragedy  of  CEdipus  Tyrannus  is  the  trag- 


268  Romance  and  Tragedy 

edy  of  filiation,  from  whose  obligations  his  extraor- 
dinary eminence  is  powerless  to  exempt  him. 
While  as  for  Hamlet,  indulging  himself  in  his  "  quid- 
dities "  to  such  an  extent  that  it  is  too  easy  to  imagine 
a  Hamlet  wholly  after  Moliere's  mind,  his  tragedy 
is  the  tragedy  of  a  son  too  —  but  of  a  son  who  can 
not  always  escape  the  comic  anomaly  of  the  hom- 
icidal moralist. 

I  have  come  a  long  way  around;  I  can  only  hope 
that  these  observations  may  have  gone  a  little  way 
toward  explaining  why  the  characterization  of  a 
pure  tragedy  like  Racine's  —  particularly  the  char- 
acterization of  the  males,  naturally  pronounced  by 
reason  of  their  sex  and  liable  on  that  account  to 
exaggeration  —  must  seem  rather  subdued  to  a 
public  untroubled  by  the  dissonances  of  its  most 
serious  literature  —  since  it  is  probably  on  these 
very  principles  that  Racine  avoided  anything  like 
a  duplication  of  his  Pyrrhus  and  Orestes.  In  the 
case  of  his  secondary  characters,  however,  whose 
relief  is  lower  any  way,  the  habitual  flatness  of 
his  modelling,  I  speak  relatively,  is  not,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  so  noticeable.  As  sketches  they  are  more 
suggestive,  leaving  so  much  more  to  the  imagination 
—  the  warlike  and  lackadaisical  Antiochus,  prom- 
enading his  hopeless  infatuation  from  siege  to  siege, 

"  Example  infortune  d'une  longue  Constance;  " 

the  devoted  Pylade,  who  whatever  he  may  not  have, 
has  at  least  a  genius  for  friendship,  — 

"  Au  travers  des  perils  un  grand  coeur  se  fait  jour. 

Que  ne  peut  l'amitie  conduite  par  l'amour?  " 


Racine  269 

and  above  all,  the  astute  old  politician  and  oppor- 
tunist, Acomat,  selfish,  unscrupulous,  circuitous,  but 
ennobled  in  defeat  by  the  cool  dispassionate  courage 
of  his  intellect,  — 

"  Ne  tardons  plus,  marchons;  et  s'il  faut  que  je  meure, 
Mourons,  moy,  cher  Osmin,  comme  visir,  et  toy 
Comme  le  favori  d'un  homme  tel  que  moy." 

These  are  vigourous  and  interesting  vignettes  if 
nothing  more. 

But  even  at  that,  Racine's  distinction  is  not  to  be 
found  in  this  direction.  On  the  whole  his  men  are 
accessory;  they  play  their  parts  acceptably  enough 
for  the  purposes  of  drama,  but  their  parts  are  not, 
as  a  rule,  great  ones.  His  proper  theme  is  woman. 
And  in  this,  his  own  field,  he  is,  it  seems  to  me,  un- 
equalled. For  the  English  reader  the  contrast  with 
Shakespeare  is  unavoidable.  Even  in  ordinary  mat- 
ters of  taste  an  assertion  of  preference  on  the  part 
of  the  critic  is  likely,  I  know,  to  seem  presumptu- 
ous; how  much  more  so  when  not  only  taste  is  con- 
cerned but  the  ideals  natural  and  acquired  in  which 
it  is  rooted!  For  it  is  hard  to  say  to  what  extent 
we  have  moulded  our  conceptions  of  female  char- 
acter upon  Shakespeare's  heroines.  Without 
prejudice,  however,  I  may  venture  to  indicate  certain 
differences  and  distinctions,  which  may  be  thought 
partly  or  even  wholly  national  but  which  at  all 
events  are  real  enough  to  merit  enumeration. 

To  begin  with,  let  me  freely  concede  what  is 
usually  regarded  as  the  greatest  achievement  of  the 
greatest  Elizabethan  —    the  "  naturalness  "  of  his 


270  Romance  and  Tragedy 

women.  My  only  misgiving  is  whether,  theatrically 
considered,  they  are  not  too  natural.  I  am  not  sure 
that  woman,  to  be  in  character,  should  not  be  her- 
self a  little  artificial,  whether  her  most  potent  at- 
tractions are  not  in  the  nature  of  embellishments: 
the  women  themselves  have  always  acted  on  that 
principle.  But  at  least,  to  the  extent  that  the  stage 
is  an  artifice  and  the  drama  is  a  convention,  does 
not  this  very  "  naturalness  "  of  Shakespeare's  women 
throw  them  slightly  out  of  perspective  on  the 
boards?  And  again,  I  think  it  a  fair  question 
whether  they  may  not  purchase  their  naturalness, 
many  of  them,  at  the  expense  of  the  highest  dra- 
matic verisimilitude  and  significance.  For  it  is 
quite  conceivable  that  a  dramatic  character  may 
possess  "  actuality  "  or  truth  of  fact,  to  the  detri- 
ment of  reality  or  truth  of  art.  Such  a  character 
may  have  all  the  interest  of  a  likeness  and  conduce 
to  all  the  pleasure  that  recognition  is  capable  of, 
and  yet  want  the  final  charm  of  illusion,  that  il- 
lusion of  a  higher  reality  which  Goethe  speaks  of 
as  the  crown  or  halo  of  literature.  And  it  is  not  the 
obviousness  of  those  long-legged,  loose-mouthed 
hoydens  in  rompers  that  I  have  in  mind;  I  am  think- 
ing of  the  population  of  the  tragedies.  They  are 
all  so  innocently  "  womanly,"  so  fondly  domestic 
and  housewifely;  their  career  is  so  obviously  matri- 
mony and  their  tragedy  to  be  thwarted  of  an  affec- 
tionate husband  and  family.  Neither  Desdemona 
nor  Ophelia  nor  Juliet  are  legitimately  heroines  of 
tragedy  at  all.  They  are  wives  and  sweethearts 
who  ought  to  be  happily  mated  and  wedded.  Nor 
is  there  any  reason  in  themselves  why  they  should 


Racine  271 

not  be  so.  As  for  little  Lady  Macbeth  with  the 
sullied  hands,  the  most  tigerish  of  her  sex  at  first 
sight,  her  vocation  is  not  murder  but  motherhood, 
and  it  is  only  in  default  of  a  cradle  that  she  is  re- 
duced to  spoiling  her  husband  with  his  bauble  crown 
and  sceptre.  After  the  manner  of  their  kind  they 
have  little  or  no  imagination  —  Juliet  has  a  little, 
perhaps;  but  indicatively  the  fancy  of  the  play  is 
Mercutio,  who  perishes  early  in  the  action.  And 
wanting  imagination  they  are  almost  destitute  of 
coquetry  as  well.  Naturally,  they  are  not  without 
the  strength  of  their  passions;  but  as  a  rule,  they  are 
singularly  free  from  sexual  jealousy;  that  from  the 
Shakespearean  point  of  view  is  a  master  passion  — 
characteristically,  feminine  jealousy  is  to  his  mind 
a  comic,  not  a  tragic  motive.  Altogether  their  out- 
look is  pretty  well  bounded  by  the  hearth.  Cordelia 
is  as  representatively  the  daughter  as  Juliet  is  the 
mistress  or  Desdemona  the  wife.  Isabella  seems 
to  have  tragic  possibilities  —  though  she  falls  under 
the  spell  of  her  brother,  the  dominant  male,  for  a 
time;  but  in  any  event  her  dramatic  destiny  has  cut 
short  her  natural  career  by  forcing  her  into  comedy 
and  wedlock  —  unless,  indeed,  her  marriage  is  her 
tragedy,  as  may  well  be  with  her  disposition.  Cleo- 
patra is,  of  course,  another  story  altogether;  and 
with  Cressida  —  to  glance  from  my  subject  an 
instant  —  affords  a  brilliant  example  of  Shakes- 
peare's versatility.  But  to  reverse  the  common 
phrase,  the  women  for  whom  he  is  most  renowned, 
are  men's  women  —  a  circumstance  that  may  inci- 
dentally have  enhanced  the  popularity  of  his  female 
characters  with  the  critics.    Of  all  the  great  drama- 


272  Romance  and  Tragedy 

tists  Shakespeare  is  the  most  subject  to  the  current 
masculine  illusions  about  women.  As  a  result,  they 
take  their  cue  from  their  masters,  just  as  Racine's 
men  take  their  cue  from  their  mistresses.  And 
though  much  more  strongly  charactered  than  are  the 
latter's  heroes,  as  they  are  more  "  natural  "  than 
his  heroines;  nevertheless  they  are  comparatively 
simple  and  intelligible  when  read  in  these  terms. 

That  it  is  not  for  this  type  of  woman  that  one 
admires  Racine  every  reader  will  agree.  Who  would 
dream  of  turning  to  him  for  a  pattern  of  elementary 
domestic  virtue  —  of  mother,  wife,  or  daughter? 
Unless  it  be  Andromaque;  and  how  much  more 
Andromaque  has  in  the  back  of  her  head  than 
Constance!  Monime,  perhaps,  and  Iphigenie  and 
Junie  may  be  made,  by  some  retouching,  to  take  on 
a  deceptive  resemblance  to  their  English  rivals;  but 
it  is  only  that  for  an  instant  their  helplessness  and 
dependence  simulate  a  kind  of  simplicity  which 
might  pass  superficially  for  "  nature,"  just  as  Cleo- 
patra's promiscuous  experience  might  be  momenta- 
rily confounded  with  the  subtlety  of  a  delicate  and 
discriminating  savoir  vivre.  In  reality  their  texture 
is  very  different.    The  interest  of  Racine's  women 

—  no  matter  of  what  sort  or  degree  it  may  happen 
to  be  —  the  property  whereby  they  attract  and  hold 
the  attention,  their  very  "  femininity,"  in  short,  is  no 
unaffected  grace;  it  is  an  accomplishment,  which 
is  capable  in  their  hands  of  becoming  an  effective 
weapon  either  of  offense  or  defense  as  the  occasion 
may  require.  In  this  sense  and  to  this  extent  they 
are  creatures  of  artifice,  if  one  likes  to  call  them  so 

—  that    their    character    in    its    final    effect   is    an 


Racine  2  73 

achievement  of  care  and  cultivation.  They  are 
thoroughly  aware  of  themselves  and  their  attain- 
ments; and  yet  their  refinement,  though  an  acquire- 
ment, is  not  an  affectation,  but  a  second  nature.  For 
all  her  transports  one  can  not  conceive  of  Phedre's 
lapsing  into  the  "  fair  "  Ophelia's  unpremeditated 
ribaldry  under  any  circumstances.  Roxane,  as  the 
inmate  of  a  harem  and  the  despot  of  slaves  and 
eunuchs,  is  used  to  terrible  atrocities,  no  doubt,  but 
it  is  difficult  to  imagine  her  so  far  forgetting  herself 
as  to  bedaub  the  bloody  faces  of  her  abjects  with 
her  own  hands.  Such  an  abomination  would  suit 
better  the  character  of  Clytemnestra  or  Electra. 
That  Racine  wrote  for  a  conventional  society  and 
chose  his  subjects  from  such  a  milieu  does  not  to 
my  mind  affect  the  issue.  Nothing  could  be  more 
"  artificial  "  to  our  view  than  the  status  of  the 
Greek  women;  and  yet  the  women  of  Greek  tragedy 
are  much  more  "  natural  "  and  "  Shakespearean  " 
than  Racine's.  On  the  other  hand,  paradoxical 
though  it  may  sound,  the  latter's  passions  are  ele- 
mental enough  —  more  so,  if  anything  —  or  at  least, 
more  integral  than  Shakespeare's  by  virtue  of  the 
superior  proficiency  of  the  characters.  In  any 
event,  the  fact  remains  that  the  personages  whom  he 
creates  —  whatever  the  vehemence  and  consistency 
of  their  emotions  —  have  not  the  sheer,  unalloyed 
"  womanliness  "  to  which  we  have  been  habituated 
by  Shakespeare;  they  are  much  too  intricate  and 
enigmatic.  With  passion  as  his  theme  and  tragedy 
as  his  genre  he  confines  himself  pretty  strictly, 
since  woman  is  his  protagonist,  to  the  representation 
of  the  sex  as  a  fatality,  and  of  the  female  as  the 


274  Romance  and  Tragedy 

shrewd  and  not  always  scrupulous  adversary  of  the 
male.  No  creature  can  transcend  its  creator. 
Great  writer  though  he  was,  it  would  be  absurd  to 
credit  Racine  with  the  demonic  genius  of  a  Shakes- 
peare. There  is  no  cause  for  surprise  that  the  dis- 
tinction of  his  heroines,  like  that  of  his  craft,  should 
be  the  result  of  calculation  and  study.  And  yet 
within  these  margins  —  narrow  as  they  may  appear 
to  the  modern  primitivist  —  he  has,  if  not  actually 
created,  at  least  given  its  classical  illustration  to  a 
certain  female  type  —  the  woman  of  sophistication, 
whose  ends  are  in  herself  and  not  in  man. 

Of  this  type  Phedre  is  the  consummation  as  the 
play  itself  is  the  consummation  of  modern  classic 
tragedy.  I  would  not  be  thought  by  this  statement 
to  belittle  Athalie;  it  is  an  admirable  piece  and  can 
hardly  be  overrated.  I  recognize,  too,  its  remarkable 
analogies  with  Greek  drama  —  particularly,  the  di- 
vinity that  shapes  its  ends.  But  withal,  its  perfec- 
tion seems  to  me  misleading  —  not  that  imperfection 
is  a  merit  in  itself  as  the  romanticists  would  hoax 
us  into  believing;  but  that  the  flawlessness  of  its 
structure  distracts  attention  from  what  is,  after 
all,  its  factitiousness.  In  a  word,  it  lacks  the  desin- 
volture,  the  warmth  and  animation  and  expressive- 
ness of  Phedre.  And  not  only  is  it  distant  and 
austere,  it  is  in  a  manner  out  of  space,  out  of  time 
altogether;  it  belongs  neither  to  its  own  period  nor 
to  its  own  stage.  In  consequence,  my  admiration 
is  always  a  little  dampened  by  my  consciousness  of 
it  as  a  tour  de  force,  like  the  Samson  Agonistes. 
But  whether  my  opinion  is  right  or  wrong  is  of  no 
great  consequence  at  this  juncture,  save  as  a  fa- 


Racine  275 

vourable  allowance  may  be  held  to  excuse  my  neglect 
of  the  play  as  lying  outside  of  the  genre  that  I  have 
been  discussing;  the  question  itself  has  nothing  to 
do  with  Phedre  as  representative  of  her  kind. 

I  have  often  wondered  whether  any  playwright 
is  capable  of  depicting  more  than  one  female  char- 
acter intimately  and  whether  his  several  heroines 
of  the  first  plan  are  not  merely  this  one  daughter 
of  his  imagination  exhibited  in  different  poses  and 
at  different  stages  of  growth  corresponding  roughly 
with  his  own  development.  In  Ibsen's  principal 
plays  I  seem  to  see,  for  all  her  disconcerting  ca- 
prices, a  single  woman  growing  up  into  a  malign 
prodigy.  I  do  not  question  the  theatrical  effect;  it 
is,  doubtless,  that  of  multiplicity,  —  any  woman  has 
a  sufficient  number  of  facets  to  supply  at  least  one 
complete  repertoire.  But  in  reading  I  persist  in  see- 
ing a  kind  of  identity  —  or  at  all  events,  a  family 
likeness.  And  so,  to  a  certain  extent,  with  Racine. 
Roxane,  so  Vinet  thinks,  is  only  Hermione  "  appro- 
fondie."  The  propriety  of  Monime,  the  ingenuous- 
ness of  Iphigenie,  the  restraint  of  Andromaque,  the 
diffidence  of  Junie,  the  petulance  of  Hermione,  the 
circumspection  of  Berenice,  the  frowardness  of 
Roxane,  the  langour  of  Phedre  —  these  traits  would 
seem  to  be  about  as  diverse  as  traits  well  can  be. 
And  yet  these  expressions  of  a  variable  temper 
serve  but  to  dissimulate  the  persistent  features  of 
an  unmistakable  consanguinity.  Unlike  Desdemona 
and  Ophelia  and  Juliet,  these  women  are  all  tragic, 
not  as  they  happen  to  have  been  overtaken  by  the 
dangers  of  a  general  mortality,  but  by  disposition 
and  necessity.  They  are  fey.     Like  Clytemnestra 


276  Romance  and  Tragedy 

and  Electra  and  Phaedra  and  Antigone,  they  are 
born  calamitous;  and  they  share  with  them  the  sin- 
ister dignity  of  predestination.  But  they  are  them- 
selves again  and  of  their  own  house  by  their  air  of 
sensibility  and  personal  elegance  —  by  the  impres- 
sion which  they  manage  somehow  to  convey  of  an 
inviolable  feminine  privacy  and  reserve  even  in  the 
midst  of  their  most  shocking  disorders. 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   SOPHOCLES 

UNIVERSAL  as  is  the  recognition  of  the  respec- 
tive values  of  Shakespeare  and  Sophocles,  yet 
it  is  hardly  recognized  how  wide  is  actually  the 
divergence  between  the  kinds  of  thing  that  they 
stand  for.  The  instinct  of  our  generation,  which  is 
all  for  confusion,  is  to  slur  it  over.  That  they  rep- 
resent two  different  attitudes  of  the  human  spirit 
is  clear  enough.  But  it  is  often  overlooked  that 
the  two  attitudes  which  they  represent  are  not  only 
different  but  more  or  less  antagonistic.  They  per- 
sonify two  diverse  and  inimical  ideals  of  life  and 
literature.  Aside  from  what  is  eternal  and  timeless 
in  them  both,  the  one  is  modern,  the  other  ancient. 
And  as  far  as  these  categories  are  significant,  modern 
is  to  be  understood,  by  the  light  of  its  genealogy, 
in  the  sense  of  popular  and  natural;  ancient  in  that 
of  humane  and  moral. 

In  order  to  get  my  bearings  to  begin  with,  I  must 
recall,  however  perfunctorily,  the  lapse  of  the  great 
classical  tradition,  the  tradition  of  humane  culture 
initiated  by  Greece  and  transmitted  by  Rome,  which 
is  the  great  outstanding  fact  of  the  Dark  Ages. 
During  that  period,  which  was  marked  by  the  gen- 
eral suspension  or  abeyance  of  literature  and  art, 
there  was  gradually  evolved  a  new  and  independent 
civilization  and  "  culture,"  in  the  narrower  or  socio- 
logical sense  of  that  word  of  many  evil  connotations. 

277 


278  Romance  and  Tragedy 

I  will  not  call  it  Christian;  though  as  far  as  it  has 
any  universal  character,  it  was  determined  in  a  great 
measure  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  by  a 
kind  of  thought  whose  subject-matter  was  mainly 
theological.  Its  exact  composition,  however,  I  have 
not  the  erudition  to  analyse;  nor  is  it  particularly 
in  my  way  to  do  so.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  along  with 
Roman  Catholicism  and  scholasticism  the  great  in- 
stitutions of  feudalism  and  chivalry  illustrate  ap- 
proximately its  general  disposition.  In  course  of 
time  this  new  and  peripheral  ideal  of  culture  began 
to  generate  secular  and  vernacular  literatures,  which 
in  some  cases  attained  considerable  proportions. 
The  temptation  has  been  to  exaggerate  their  impor- 
tance, especially  the  German  contribution,  by  mo- 
tives of  patriotic  and  particularistic  prejudice.  But 
such  monuments  as  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  the  Song 
of  Roland,  and  the  Mystery  Plays  of  England  are 
sufficient  to  suggest  what  might  have  been  the  result, 
if  these  germinations  had  been  allowed  to  come  to 
fruition  without  the  intervention  of  the  Renaissance 
and  the  Revival  of  Learning. 

Under  the  circumstances,  however,  the  growth  of 
mediaevalism  was  checked  and  diverted,  where  it 
was  not  subdued  and  overcome,  by  the  recrudescence 
of  classicism.  Instead  of  having  but  a  single  tra- 
dition and  a  single  line  of  development  the  human 
spirit  might  now  choose  between  two;  or  by  dividing 
itself  variously  it  might  find  any  number  of  outlets 
for  its  activity.  And  at  the  same  time,  there  was  a 
split  in  another  sense  —  between  the  learned  and 
the  lewd.  It  would  be  the  scholars,  the  men  of 
education,  the  curious  and  the  critical  who  would 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  279 

be  the  most  likely  to  revert  to  the  broken  tradition 
of  Greece  and  Rome ;  while  the  people,  the  ignorant 
and  the  credulous  would  naturally  continue  to  move 
with  the  stream  on  which  they  had  been  floating  for 
centuries  —  and  in  the  same  direction.  It  was  in- 
evitable, then,  that  where  literature  came  under  the 
patronage  of  a  court  and  an  official  criticism,  it 
should  react  powerfully,  in  the  interest  of  distinc- 
tion, in  favour  of  the  classic  ideal ;  where  it  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  people,  however,  it  would  persist  in 
the  mediaeval  sense,  though  its  expression  might  be 
modified  by  the  precedents  of  restoration  and  re- 
form. The  former  was  the  case  with  French  drama; 
the  latter  with  English.  There  were  courtly  and 
scholarly  poets  and  essayists  scattered  up  and  down 
the  English  Renaissance  imitating  Seneca  and  ridi- 
culing the  absurdities  of  popular  playwrights.  With 
suitable  encouragement  and  organization  they  or 
their  successors  would  have  been  capable  of  produc- 
ing in  time  a  classical  English  tragedy,  such  as  the 
French  produced  a  century  later.  But  the  temper 
and  the  habit  of  the  nation  and  the  example  of 
Shakespeare  were  decisive.  The  case  is  often  mis- 
conceived or  misrepresented.  Shakespeare  was  not 
a  great  poet  because  he  was  a  romanticist,  nor  was 
Ben  Johnson  his  inferior  because  he  was  a  classi- 
cist. That  Shakespeare  was  a  superlative  play- 
wright is  merely  the  reason  or  one  of  the  reasons 
that  romanticism  prevailed  in  England;  if  he  had 
been  an  ineffectual  one,  it  might  not  have  done  so. 
Whereas  if  Ben  Johnson  had  been  sufficiently  im- 
posing, classicism  might  have  attained  the  preemi- 
nence it  did  across  the  Channel  with  Corneille. 


280  Romance  and  Tragedy 

In  this  way  it  was  the  people  who  made  English 
drama  through  their  favourite  poet.     If  the  court 
had  any  official  influence,  it  was  probably  exerted, 
in  accordance  with  Elizabeth's  usual  policy,  to  the 
encouragement  of  the  national  and  popular  inspira- 
tion rather  than  the  humanistic.     And  the  people 
were  the  issue  and  the  posterity  of  medievalism. 
They  cared  nothing  about  antiquity  and  knew  less; 
their  "  culture,"  such  as  it  was,  was  inherited  from 
the  Middle  Ages.     They  had  been  brought  up  on 
the    mystery    and    miracle    plays.      Better    things 
they  might  appreciate;  but  those  better  things  must 
appear  in  recognizable  ways  as  outgrowths  and  im- 
provements of  the  kind  of  thing  they  were  already 
used  to.    And  so  their  choregus  would  find  himself 
committed  to  a  certain  kind  of  conservatism  in  enter- 
ing upon  his  succession.    Shakespeare  was  no  radi- 
cal, no  reckless  innovator;  his  invention  as  distin- 
guished from  his  imagination  was  notoriously  slight, 
as  seems  to  be  the  rule  with  genius.    Critics  have  ex- 
claimed over  his  borrowings  and  imitations.     Un- 
doubtedly,  he   was   affected   himself   by   classical 
communications.    It  is  impossible  that  living  when 
he  did  live,  in  an  atmosphere  of  such  ideas,  he 
should  not  have  been  affected  by  them.    The  Battle 
of  the  Books  seems  a  silly  altercation  on  the  one 
part,   if   you   happen   to   think   that   without   the 
ancients  there  would  have  been  no  moderns  to  boast 
of.    And  it  is  equally  undeniable  that  without  an- 
tiquity Shakespeare  would  not  have  been  so  wholly 
Shakespeare.    Nevertheless,  whatever  secondary  in- 
fluences he  may  have  been  exposed  to,  his  direct 
tradition  is  the  mediaeval  tradition  and  his  handling 


Shakespeare  and  Sophocles  281 

of  it  is  such  as  to  have  made  him  the  supreme  repre- 
sentative of  modernity,  to  whom  every  romantic 
revival  has  sought  instinctively. 

Without  attempting  to  define  mediaevalism  any 
more  closely,  then,  I  may  point  out  what  there  is 
in  Shakespeare  which  is  not  in  Sophocles.  In  the 
first  place,  modern  life  —  to  give  the  word  modern 
its  fullest  extension  as  including  whatever  is  novel 
to  antiquity  —  is  tremendously  more  complicated 
than  ancient  life  ever  was;  and  in  the  second  place, 
our  manner  of  looking  at  life  has  changed  tremen- 
dously, to  take  no  account  of  the  advantage  the 
Greek  has  had  over  all  other  races  in  clarity  of  mind 
and  penetration  of  vision.  Consider,  for  one  thing, 
how  little  the  ancient  knew  as  compared  even  with 
the  contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  how  small  his 
stock  of  information.  He  was  acquainted  only  with 
an  infinitesimal  portion  of  the  universe;  of  the  globe 
on  which  he  walked  he  knew  only  an  insignificant 
corner  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  Of  the 
denizens  of  this  earth,  of  its  flora  and  fauna  he  was 
equally  ignorant;  while  its  shape,  size,  constitution, 
and  manner  of  conducting  itself  were  to  him  mainly 
matters  of  guess-work.  He  had  by  no  means  dis- 
covered all  that  the  naked  eye  was  capable  of  dis- 
covering, if  properly  used,  to  say  nothing  of  that 
vast  accumulation  of  fact  which  has  been  added  to 
modern  discovery  by  microscope  and  telescope  and 
one  and  another  ingenious  contrivance  for  the 
multiplication  and  extension  of  the  senses. 

Nevertheless  —  I  may  as  well  anticipate  the  ob- 
jection —  every  ancient  literature  is  not  clear  and 
simple.    And  while  the  complexity  of  modern  life 


282  Romance  and  Tragedy 

has  done  much  to  make  chronic  a  confusion  and 
sophistication  of  mind  to  which  every  age  and  race 
is  liable;  yet  the  relative  lucidity  of  Greek  literature 
is  due  also  to  the  quality  of  Greek  thought  and  to 
the  nature  of  its  ideas.  It  is  not  only  that  there 
is  more  fact  nowadays,  but  that  some  minds  — 
modern  minds  particularly  —  are  so  constituted  as 
to  be  more  easily  impressed  and  dominated  by  it. 
For  it  may  be  said  with  a  degree  of  plausibility  that 
beyond  a  certain  narrow  limit  life  is  equally  ple- 
thoric for  every  mind  in  proportion  to  its  capacity, 
as  a  sponge  of  a  certain  size  will  hold  only  so  much 
water  no  matter  how  much  there  may  be  in  the 
ocean.  But  the  comparative  intellectual  simplicity 
and  lucidity  of  the  Greeks  is  one  of  the  fundamental 
data  which  can  not  be  accounted  for  historically; 
it  can  only  be  noted  and  taken  for  granted.  For  that 
reason  I  have  nothing  to  say  here  about  the  Greeks' 
preoccupation  with  the  moral  issue,  which  simpli- 
fied life  so  wonderfully  for  them.  While  the  cir- 
cumstances surrounding  this  essential  fact  become 
merely  a  complication  of  the  subject  itself. 

As  another  such  incidental  circumstance,  then,  it 
is  to  be  remarked  that  along  with  this  accumulation 
of  physical  fact  has  gone  a  constant  accumulation 
of  what  may  be  called  psychological  fact.  Not  only 
do  we  know  more  about  man  and  his  motives  and 
general  mental  machinery,  but  our  heads  have  be- 
come a  depository  of  creeds,  superstitions,  hypothe- 
ses, and  opinions.  No  idea  that  once  comes  into  the 
world  ever  dies  quite  out;  no  matter  how  false  or 
erroneous  it  may  be  or  how  often  exploded,  its 
ghost  still  walks,  reappearing  in  one  form  or  another 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  283 

to  haunt  and  unsettle  the  mind  of  posterity.  And 
their  numbers  are  always  multiplying;  for  naturally 
enough  it  is  impossible  to  increase  our  supply  of 
information  without  also  increasing  our  explanations 
and  thereby  adding  to  our  theories,  systems,  and 
philosophies.  Given  the  facts,  the  impulse  to  ac- 
count for  them  and  dispose  of  them  is  irresistible; 
and  hence  the  swarm  of  dogmas  —  moral,  religious, 
physical,  metaphysical,  social,  economic,  literary, 
artistic  —  which  in  succession  have  bewildered  and 
perplexed  the  world  and  whose  crumbling  remains 
can  never  be  wholly  dispersed  but  serve  as  a  found- 
ation or  soil  for  their  successors  so  that  under  the 
churches  of  Christendom  you  shall  find  the  ruined 
temples  of  Paganism  and  under  the  laboratories  of 
science  the  rubbish  of  transcendental  superstition, 
the  broken  alembics  of  the  alchemist  and  the  mouldy 
horoscopes  of  the  astrologer.  And  all  the  while  we 
are  endeavouring  to  adjust  our  conduct  to  our  dis- 
coveries and  our  principles,  until  our  relations  at 
large  —  our  society,  our  culture,  our  civilization  — 
become  ever  more  involved  and  intricate  and  un- 
reliable. 

In  contrast  with  all  this  multifariousness  how 
simple  seem  the  life  and  the  thought  of  the  Greek, 
subtle  in  his  way  as  the  Athenian  was.  According 
to  Plato  (or  whoever  wrote  Alcibiades  I)  Alcibiades' 
education  comprised  three  subjects  —  grammar,  in- 
cluding reading,  writing,  and  literature,  as  we  should 
say,  wrestling,  and  the  cithera.  To  be  sure,  he 
might  have  learned  the  flute  also  if  he  had  cared  to 
do  so.  There  was  little  positive  knowledge  to  be 
acquired ;  no  deep  historical  deposits  to  be  unearthed 


284  Romance  and  Tragedy 

for  history  had  but  begun.  Religion  and  philosophy 
were  still  elementary;  — or  at  least  the  Greek  saw 
them  clearly  and  in  high  relief,  unencumbered  with 
very  much  lumber  —  philosophy,  particularly,  in  an 
array  of  sharp  antitheses  —  the  one  and  the  many, 
the  same  and  the  other,  rest  and  motion,  being  and 
becoming.  And  in  this  wise  being  unembarrassed 
with  a  thorny  undergrowth  of  exceptions  and  vari- 
ations, he  was  able  to  frame  a  scheme  of  things 
which  has  never  been  surpassed,  on  the  whole,  for 
its  bold  and  distinct  projection.  No  doubt,  he  would 
have  done  so  more  or  less  successfully  whatever  his 
materials,  such  was  the  character  of  his  conscious- 
ness; but  he  was  assisted  in  doing  so  by  the  circum- 
stances in  which  he  found  himself.  Even  the  Soph- 
ists have  come  to  look  to  us  like  innocent  and 
transparent  prestidigitators  with  very  little  harm  in 
them  after  all. 

Nor  was  his  practical  life  and  conduct  more  in- 
volved than  his  religion  and  philosophy.  The  citizen 
of  a  small  and  isolated  city  in  a  comparatively  easy 
society,  he  was  mainly  engrossed  by  his  relationship 
to  the  polity  of  which  he  was  a  member  and  the 
maintenance  of  his  position  and  credit  as  a  free  man 
in  a  democracy  raised  on  a  foundation  of  slavery. 
His  intercourse  and  association  were  mostly  public 
and  by  so  much  the  more  general  and  ideal;  while 
his  private  existence  was  itself  narrow  and  reserved. 
His  interests  were  correspondingly  broad  and  obvi- 
ous; his  cares  and  joys  were  reduced  to  the  measure 
of  the  community.  In  short,  his  consciousness  was 
at  the  same  time  more  abstract  and  intense  than  any 
we  are  now  familiar  with. 


Shakespeare  and  Sophocles  285 

To  emphasize  the  contrast  between  this  generic 
integrity  in  which  Sophocles  must  have  shared  and 
the  circumstantial  diffusion  of  modernity  in  which 
Shakespeare  had  his  part  —  a  contrast  admirably 
visualized  in  Greek  temple  and  Gothic  cathedral  — 
we  have  only  to  recall  the  three  great  institutions 
of  feudalism,  chivalry,  and  Roman  Catholicism 
which  stand  behind  the  mediaeval  tradition,  with 
their  subtle  and  elaborate  conceptions  of  the  rela- 
tions of  man  to  his  fellow  men  —  inferiors,  equals, 
and  superiors  —  to  the  state,  and  to  God  and  the 
Church,  along  with  the  etiquette,  ceremonial,  and 
ritual  in  which  they  sought  to  symbolize  those  ideas. 
And  if  these  institutions  had  early  begun  to  lose  a 
portion  of  the  influence  which  they  exerted  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  yet  they  had  at  least  produced 
an  effect  not  to  be  easily  obliterated  and  in 
yielding  finally  gave  way  to  other  systems  no  less 
intricate  than  they  themselves. 

This  is  no  attempt,  of  course,  at  anything  like  a 
complete  account  of  the  matter.  Nevertheless,  it 
must  be  apparent  that  herein  lies  a  fundamental 
difference  between  modern  and  ancient  —  between 
the  new  or  romantic,  that  is,  and  the  old  or  classical 
literature,  and  in  so  far  between  Shakespeare  and 
Sophocles  —  namely,  in  this  immense  accession  of 
fact  and  the  tremendous  prolixity  and  sophistication 
of  experience  and  consciousness,  both  personal  and 
social,  which  results  directly  from  it.  In  other  words, 
the  data  which  even  a  writer  of  Shakespeare's  day 
had  to  master  and  take  care  of,  were  increased  to 
such  an  extent  as  already  to  make  a  significant 
presentation  of  life  a  problem  of  incredible  difficulty. 


286  Romance  and  Tragedy 

And  indeed,  such  an  effect  is  visible  in  Shakespeare's 
own  drama  at  the  most  superficial  glance.  Every- 
where, as  compared  with  the  work  of  the  classical 
dramatists,  his  plays  are  marked  by  an  abundance, 
a  superfluity  of  fact  and  a  consequent  diffusion  of 
thought  and  expression.  Not  only  is  his  "  story  " 
twice  or  three  times  as  long  as  Sophocles';  it  is 
crammed  with  incident  and  observation  of  all  sorts, 
congruous  and  incongruous,  pertinent  and  imperti- 
nent. Whereas  Sophocles  has  five  or  six  characters 
to  a  piece,  Shakespeare  may  run  to  forty  or  fifty; 
and  these  characters,  instead  of  being  confined  to 
a  single  set  of  principals  and  their  suite,  are  drawn 
from  various  companies  and  from  all  levels  of  so- 
ciety. The  motives,  too,  by  which  these  characters 
are  actuated,  are,  in  the  one  case,  relatively  simple; 
in  the  other,  numerous  and  inextricable.  About  the 
classical  character  there  is  something  diagrammatic 
or  figurative,  like  a  silhouette;  about  a  Shakespear- 
ean character  there  is  likely  to  be  something  abstruse 
and  problematic.  And  finally,  while  the  intention 
of  a  Sophoclean  play  is  more  or  less  evident  on 
the  face  of  it;  that  of  a  Hamlet  or  a  King  Lear 
is  dark  and  mystifying,  and  is  engaged  confusedly 
with  the  elements  themselves  and  immanent  in 
them. 

So  it  is  that  as  the  amount  of  fact  for  which  the 
writer  has  to  account,  increases,  his  difficulties  in 
disposing  it  into  a  satisfactory  system  and  of  dis- 
engaging a  distinct  idea  will  increase  also.  As  life 
becomes  more  and  more  miscellaneous,  and  as  the 
thoughts  and  emotions  with  which  we  contemplate 
it  grow  ever  more  comprehensive,  and  our  specula- 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  287 

tions  augment  in  subtlety  and  extension;  it  will  be 
harder  and  harder  to  express  them  even  piece-meal, 
to  say  nothing  of  composing  an  intelligible  present- 
ment of  the  society  into  whose  existence  they  enter. 
In  other  words,  it  will  be  ever  more  difficult  to  or- 
ganize into  literature  and  significance  the  materials 
which  experience  has  to  offer.  And  simultaneously 
with  the  rising  welter  of  existence,  it  will  become  the 
more  difficult  also  to  arrive  at  a  clear  comprehension 
of  its  import.  The  weight  of  the  facts  will  tend  to 
overload  and  paralyse  the  imagination.  And  at  the 
same  time  that  the  multiplicity  of  particulars  will 
obscure  a  perception  of  their  import,  it  will  distract 
the  attention  to  the  mere  observation  and  notation 
of  discrete  peculiarities.  The  principle  which  pur- 
ports to  guarantee  the  external  consistency  of  such 
a  world,  be  it  evolution  or  elan  vital,  is  altogether 
too  vague  and  rarefied  to  make  sense  of  our  artistic 
and  literary  epitomes  and  microcosms. 

Such,  it  seems  to  me,  is  at  least  one  vital  distinc- 
tion between  humanism  and  modernism,  between  the 
art  of  Sophocles  and  that  of  Shakespeare.  Whatever 
is  produced  in  the  spirit  of  the  former  is  incited  by 
the  desire  to  make  sense  of  experience.  For  such 
an  art  circumstance  is  merely  illustrative.  What 
counts  is  the  large  bold  block  of  meaning;  fact  is 
expressive  only  as  evidence  of  idea.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  art  of  a  Shakespeare  proceeds  from  a 
spirit  more  or  less  under  the  domination  of  actu- 
ality and  subdued  to  what  it  works  in.  It  repre- 
sents an  order  of  literature  in  which  the  conscious- 
ness of  life  is  no  longer  integral  and  consistent, 
but    is    distributed    into    particular    moments    or 


288  Romance  and  Tragedy 

phases.  It  is  the  picture,  the  image,  the  impression 
—  the  illusion  of  swift  and  discontinuous  succession 
which  is  accentuated.  Even  Shakespeare's  vision  is 
fractional;  it  penetrates  and  informs  the  single  man- 
ifestation and  is  dissipated  with  it. 

Naturally  I  have  no  pretension  to  know  how  Soph- 
ocles conceived  his  plays;  but  the  fact  that  they 
can  be  viewed  severally  in  the  light  of  a  problem, 
and  a  problem  with  a  solution,  is  sufficiently  in- 
dicative of  the  distinction  that  I  am  drawing.  With 
other  speculative  spirits  of  his  time  Sophocles  would 
appear  to  have  been  profoundly  impressed  by  the 
observation  that  man  is  actuated  by  two  paramount 
desires  —  he  has,  as  it  were,  a  passion  for  happiness 
and  a  passion  for  righteousness  or  justice;  and  it 
is  difficult  or  impossible  for  the  high-minded  ob- 
server to  contemplate  with  patience  an  existence 
which  fails  to  provide  for  the  gratification  of  both. 
Even  in  fancy  the  misery  of  the  virtuous  is  re- 
volting; the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  dismaying. 
Hence  the  urgency  to  reconcile  the  two  ideals  in  the 
face  of  such  opposition  and  contradiction  as  were 
tauntingly  voiced  by  Callicles  and  Thrasymachus. 
Plato,  to  be  sure,  settled  the  matter  to  his  own  satis- 
faction by  asserting  the  absolute  identity  of  hap- 
piness and  justice  —  the  state  of  virtue,  so  he  rules, 
is  the  state  of  felicity,  irrespective  of  material  cir- 
cumstances and  independent  of  the  approval  of  the 
gods  themselves.  But  he  offers  no  proof  of  this 
declaration,  save  an  implicit  appeal  to  consciousness. 
Of  course,  if  one  feels  so,  that  is  the  end  of  it;  but 
it  must  be  acknowledged  that  appearances  are  often 
against  him.     At  all  events,  Sophocles,  who  as  a 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  289 

dramatist  had  to  deal  with  outward  manifestations 
rather  than  inward  convictions,  is  neither  so  bold 
nor  so  dogmatic.  Perhaps  he  was  not  quite  so  cer- 
tain. But  in  any  case,  it  was  a  rather  different 
aspect  of  the  subject  which  would  thrust  itself  upon 
his  attention.  As  a  tragedian  he  would  be  preoc- 
cupied, rather,  with  human  mischances  and  calami- 
ties. On  the  whole,  the  question  put  to  him  by  his 
sort  of  theme  is,  not  so  much  a  question  about  the 
character  of  the  happy  —  whether  he  is  virtuous  or 
not  —  as  it  is  a  question  about  the  character  of  the 
wretched  —  whether  he  is  invariably  unjust.  To 
be  sure,  in  his  extant  plays  he  does  face  the  former 
question  twice  —  in  Philoctetes  and  (Edipus  Colon- 
eus.  But  in  every  instance  he  answers  the  question, 
and  he  answers  it  in  the  general  sense  of  Plato, 
though  less  explicitly.  Happiness  and  righteous- 
ness, he  seems  to  think,  are  somehow  paired  together 
in  the  constitution  of  the  cosmos,  so  that  the  former 
exists  in  some  manner  by  virtue  of  the  latter.  Nor 
is  such  a  conception  in  its  large  outlines  unfamiliar 
to  pious  souls  in  every  age.  Only  there  are  these 
two  differences  to  be  noticed.  First,  in  Sophocles' 
view  the  misery  of  injustice  is  not  referable  to  the 
judgment  or  visitation  of  an  indignant  or  offended 
deity.  The  execution  of  this  or  that  ordinance  or 
the  punishment  for  its  violation  may  be  entrusted 
to  the  agency  or  instrumentality  of  some  particular 
divinity,  who  comes  in  this  way  to  represent  it,  as 
the  Apollo  of  Electro,  or  the  Furies  of  The  Eument- 
des.  But  the  inviolability  of  the  entire  order  or  the 
constitution  itself  is  an  impersonal  and  inevitable 
law;  for  Sophocles'  nature  —  and  here  is  the  second 


290  Romance  and  Tragedy 

point  of  difference  —  is  fundamentally  moral  and 
relevant  without  coincidences  and  exceptions  on  the 
one  hand  and  without  impertinences  and  miscar- 
riages on  the  other.  To  Philoctetes  and  to  (Edipus 
at  Colonos  it  assures  the  blessings  of  a  reconciliation 
with  righteousness ;  and  the  others  it  leaves,  in  their 
several  degrees,  convicted  of  misdoing,  as  plunged  in 
disaster. 

But  this  is  all  an  idea.  What  Shakespeare  has  to 
say  about  the  facts  is  something  very  different. 
Shakespeare  is  a  mediaeval  overtaken  by  the  immense 
perturbation  of  the  Renaissance  —  a  perturbation  so 
vast  that  its  agitations  have  not  yet  wholly  subsided. 
Its  immediate  effect,  however,  was  the  erection  of 
incongruity  or  disorder  into  a  vital  principle.  In 
reality,  there  is  a  certain  moment  of  the  Renais- 
sance which  is  fully  as  responsible  for  romanticism 
as  is  medievalism  itself,  though  it  seldom  or  never 
gets  the  credit  to  which  it  is  entitled.  For  the  time 
being  the  rule  of  regularity  and  consistency  was 
pretermitted;  the  solidarity  of  character  was 
broken  up.  Man  ceased  to  think  and  act  in  the 
spirit  of  any  one  maxim,  but  gave  license  to  all  sides 
of  his  being  indifferently,  without  concern  to  dis- 
criminate between  them.  He  was  no  longer  integer 
vitae,  a  single  and  indivisible  will,  but  an  etre  ondoy- 
ant  et  divers.  The  duplicity  of  Shakespeare's  char- 
acters is  a  commonplace  of  criticism;  and  many  and 
ingenious  have  been  the  essays  to  derive  their  trag- 
edy from  the  disaffection  within  their  own  souls. 
Though  one  may  not  like  the  association  of  ideas, 
one  is  perforce  reminded  by  these  attempts  of  Ten- 
nyson's "  second-rate  sensitive  mind  not  in  harmony 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  291 

with  itself."  But  in  that  case  why  not  call  them  mul- 
tiple and  dispense  with  all  but  the  protagonist,  who 
comprises  a  privy  conspiracy  in  himself?  Not  that 
I  would  deny  to  Shakespeare's  characters  a  share 
in  the  distemper  of  their  time  —  the  apergu,  when 
properly  guarded,  is  a  suggestive  one;  only  Shakes- 
peare's is  not  primarily  a  psychological  drama,  and 
to  interpret  it  as  such  —  as  a  study  in  "  multiple 
personality,"  for  example —  is  to  denature  it. 

The  inconsequence  that  struck  Shakespeare  most, 
it  seems  to  me,  was  not  so  much  an  inconsistency 
of  character  —  though  he  is  sensitive  to  that  also, 
as  every  one  must  be  who  has  any  experience  of 
modernity  at  all  —  but  rather  an  incompatibility 
of  nature.  It  is  not  exactly  a  case  of  maladjust- 
ment, as  I  see  it,  or  of  a  faulty  adaptation  of  the 
creature;  though  that  is  necessarily  involved,  it  is 
a  secondary  matter.  The  point  has  to  do  with  a 
failure  of  continuity  in  creation,  a  kind  of  inco- 
herence or  inconsecutiveness  in  the  transition  from 
the  material  or  physical  to  the  sentient  or  human. 
Sophocles  avoided  the  difficulty  by  giving  the  uni- 
verse a  moral  bent  or  turn  consonant  with  that  of 
humanity;  the  Renaissance  relaxed  the  law  for  man 
even  within  the  confines  of  consciousness.  Hence 
a  dissonance,  a  perpetual  contradiction  and  confu- 
tation of  reason  by  circumstance,  an  irrational  and 
preposterous  frustration  of  human  aspiration  and 
endeavour  by  accident  and  fortuity,  which  being 
essentially  casual  and  unintelligible,  has  an  air  of 
grotesque  and  idiotic  triviality.  There  is  something 
insufferably  stupid  and  odious  about  it.  It  has  the 
effect  of  an  indignity,  of  an  outrage  to  human  nature. 


292  Romance  and  Tragedy 

What  an  ignominious  business  is  that  in  which 
Hamlet  finally  loses  his  life,  for  a  man  of  his  parts 
—  and  how  Shakespearean!  Nor  is  the  end  of  Lear 
less  inopportune  and  futile.  Even  the  sonnets  are 
drenched  with  this  same  feeling  of  perversity  and 
humiliation. 

But  mark  that  this  sense  of  incongruity  is  not  an 
idea,  like  Sophocles'.  It  is  an  impression,  or  per- 
haps, a  notation.  No  doubt,  Shakespeare  reinforced 
the  effect;  but  the  incongruity  has  its  roots  in  the 
indiscrimination  of  life  itself.  It  is  not  that  he 
makes  it  appear  so,  but  that  it  actually  is  so  or 
looks  so.  And  particularly  does  it  look  so  when  the 
items  are  viewed  severally  and  successively,  cine- 
matographically,  in  the  modern  manner.  In  other 
words,  incongruity  is  a  property  of  actuality  not 
of  art.  Racine  is  not  incongruous;  or  if  he  is,  he 
has  blundered.  Sophocles  is  not  incongruous.  To 
them  incongruity  would  have  meant  vicious  archi- 
tectonics; for  incongruity  is  impossible  without  a 
mass  of  disorderly  detail.  Hence  wherever  incon- 
gruity is  discernible  in  a  work  of  art,  it  argues  excess 
of  fact  and  indifference  to  design  for  there  is  nothing 
conclusive  about  incongruity;  on  the  contrary. 
Similarly,  wherever  the  conclusion  of  a  piece  of 
literature  is  unconvincing,  the  piece  itself  is  deficient 
in  idea  or  intention.  And  so  I  can  not  help  thinking 
that  Shakespeare  was,  as  I  have  implied,  concerned 
rather  to  reflect  life  than  to  interpret  it.  He  was 
more  interested  in  posing  the  problem  than  in  solving 
it.  And  a  more  vivid,  intense,  amazing  image  —  a 
more  suggestive  and  provocative  statement  of  the 
enigma  has  never  been  known  than  Shakespeare's. 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  293 

That  such  a  literature,  however,  is  incapable  of 
affording  the  highest  satisfaction  possible  to  litera- 
ture, I  hold  to  be  indisputable.  As  is  the  case  with 
experience  also,  its  very  lack  of  finality  is  against 
it.  For  life  itself  is  never  finished  but  ever  lapsing. 
No  transaction  ever  actually  concludes;  it  evolves. 
One  incident  is  prolonged  into  another,  and  so  radi- 
ates and  ramifies  that  to  bound  or  delimit  it  is  im- 
possible. And  even  in  those  rare  cases  where  an 
affair  seems  to  have  reached  a  period,  the  end  is 
splintered  and  ragged  —  is  anything  but  such  a  clean 
and  tidy  cleavage  as  we  expect  of  art;  nothing  is 
definitely  settled,  nothing  or  very  little  is  decided. 
The  players  of  all  the  world  go  on  much  as  before; 
the  lover  is  rejected  or  finds  his  faithless  inamorata 
coquetting  with  some  one  else  and  leaves  her  for 
another  more  appreciative  of  his  attentions,  or  for 
no  one  at  all.  Or  they  fall  in  love  against  their 
parents'  wishes,  and  marry  each  other  or  the  con- 
trary—  it  makes  little  difference  in  the  long  run 
either  to  themselves  or  any  one  else  —  they  merely 
become  the  centre  or  the  centres  of  a  new  vortex 
or  the  dilation  of  the  preceding.  Such  are  the  facts, 
objectively  indifferent  and  indeterminate.  And  so 
the  writer  who  pretends  to  take  things  as  they 
come,  kclt'  avaynriv  vto  8ivr]s,  in  accordance  with 
necessity,  by  force  of  the  whirl,  must  either  leave 
his  work  at  a  loose  end  or  else  stitch  it  roughly  into 
some  conventional  selvage  at  variance  with  the  reg- 
ular pattern  of  events. 

There  are  several  plays  of  Moliere's  —  by  no 
means  his  worst  —  plays  like  Tartuffe  and  Le  Mis- 
anthrope, which  the  reader  finds  it  impossible  to 


294  Romance  and  Tragedy 

lay  aside  without  a  sense  of  disappointment.  In 
the  case  of  Tartujje  the  annoyance  is  particularly 
sensible;  the  close  of  the  piece  is  so  obviously  me- 
chanical and  factitious.  It  looks  as  though  his  char- 
acters had  finally  been  drawn  into  a  predicament 
from  which  no  ingenuity  was  capable  of  extricating 
them  by  natural  means  growing  out  of  the  premises. 
There  is  nothing  for  it  but  a  special  intervention, 
for  whether  the  work  of  Grand  Monarque  or 
Olympian,  the  issue  is  equally  miraculous.  It  is 
neither  according  to  necessity  nor  probability,  physi- 
cal or  moral;  it  is  not5t'  aXX-qXa,  by  consecution  at 
all.  But  Moliere  in  his  degree  is  a  realist.  He  may 
not  appear  so  in  comparison  with  Shakespeare, 
whose  eye  for  the  phenomenal  is  so  marvellously 
prismatic ;  but  he  does  appear  so  in  comparison  with 
Racine,  and  also  in  the  comparison  of  tragedy  and 
comedy,  the  latter  of  which  is  necessarily  more 
photographic  than  the  former.  Tartuffe  may  be 
satire;  but  none  the  less  does  it  disclose  a  minute 
recognition  of  the  mores  of  the  period.  In  life,  how- 
ever, such  knots  as  that  into  which  Orgon  is  tied, 
are  indissoluble.  The  Orgons  of  reality  fare  like 
flies  in  the  meshes  of  the  Tartuffes.  If  Moliere  had 
wished  to  close  his  play  in  the  sense  in  which  he  had 
been  conducting  it,  he  should  have  left  his  dupe  to 
flounder  hopelessly  in  the  web  into  which  his  credu- 
lity had  betrayed  him.  Such  a  cessation,  however, 
was  impracticable;  the  audience  would  not  have  put 
up  with  it.  Overborne  by  custom,  Moliere  was  re- 
duced to  flouting  plausibility  and  forging  a  conclu- 
sion, the  most  unlikely  conclusion  to  what  might 
have  been  one  of  the  most  likely  plays  he  ever  made. 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  295 

In  Le  Misanthrope,  on  the  other  hand,  the  case 
is  reversed:  the  conclusion  is  equally  inadequate 
but  for  just  the  contrary  reason.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  engagement  of  the  two  "  confidants," 
Philante  and  Eliante,  which  is  again,  as  far  as  it 
goes,  a  thoroughly  conventional  expedient  intended 
to  give  the  piece  a  deceptive  appearance  of  finality 
—  with  this  exception  Le  Misanthrope  ends  very 
much  as  such  an  affair  is  likely  to  end  in  reality  —  it 
breaks  up.  Celimene  is  exposed  and  Alceste  makes 
his  exit.  There  is  a  fine  off -handedness  about  it; 
and  that  is  all.  Nothing  in  particular  is  illustrated 
in  spite  of  the  circumstance  that  the  play  proposes 
a  very  pretty  problem.  And  it  is  on  this  account 
that  the  close  is  so  teasing  —  that  it  does  not  answer 
the  very  question  which  the  action  has  tacitly  pro- 
pounded; if  anything,  it  raises  others.  Hence  it 
is  not  surprising  to  find  that  the  significance  of  the 
comedy  and  even  its  status  as  comedy  have  been 
a  subject  of  discussion;  for  it  seems  hardly  to 
substantiate  an  idea  at  all,  but  rather  to  moot 
certain  of  the  dilemmas  and  paradoxes  of  social 
ethics. 

Nor  is  Shakespeare  any  less  liable  to  this  sort  of 
dislocation  —  he  is  rather  more  so,  perhaps,  though 
in  his  case  we  are  not  so  likely  to  be  conscious  of 
discomfort  because  we  have  become  more  thoroughly 
accustomed  to  his  dramatic  mannerisms.  But  to 
take  only  a  single  instance,  Measure  for  Measure. 
It  is  not  one  of  Shakespeare's  great  plays,  to  be 
sure;  but  the  subject  has  great  possibilities  over  and 
above  those  of  which  he  has  taken  advantage.  Why 
he  should  have  chosen  to  make  a  "  comedy  "  of  it, 


296  Romance  and  Tragedy 

is  an  idle  inquiry,  though  it  seems  from  the  tone  and 
atmosphere  as  though  he  must  have  done  so  against 
the  grain.  But  having  once  chosen,  he  was  fatally 
determined  to  a  counterfeit  and  disingenuous  con- 
clusion. For  such  marriages  as  those  of  Mariana 
and  Angelo,  Isabella  and  the  Duke  there  is  no  ex- 
cuse other  than  the  artificial  criterion  which  assigns 
to  every  romantic  comedy  its  quota  of  arbitrary 
weddings  as  to  every  romantic  tragedy  its  quota 
of  violent  deaths.  They  are  neither  inevitable  nor 
intelligible,  neither  nature  nor  art.  At  best  they 
serve  to  dissemble  after  a  fashion  the  inconclusive- 
ness  of  nature  apart  from  principle. 

And  yet  there  is  one  exception  —  in  the  case  of 
tragedy  in  the  English  sense  —  that  kind  of  a  trag- 
edy, I  mean,  which  has  a  fatal  outcome.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  death  is  a  termination  if  not  a  consumma- 
tion; it  is  at  least  a  bound  if  not  a  bourne.  It  may 
answer  no  questions,  it  may  provide  no  solution  for 
our  perplexities;  but  it  puts  an  end  to  us  and  our 
problems  —  it  stops  our  mouths  forever.  And  in  so 
doing,  it  simulates  a  kind  of  finality,  even  a  kind  of 
fatality.  In  this  respect,  therefore,  as  far  as  "  natu- 
ralness "  is  concerned,  there  is  no  reason  to  complain 
of  the  catastrophe  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies.  In 
following  life  itself,  he  has  come  —  without  more 
ado  —  to  the  one  foregone  conclusion.  In  this  sense 
there  is  nothing  disappointing  about  the  denoue- 
ments of  Othello  or  Hamlet  or  Macbeth  or  Romeo 
and  Juliet. 

It  is  only  from  the  moral  point  of  view  that  they 
leave  something  to  be  desired.  And  from  this  angle 
I  confess  that  to  my  mind  they  are  not  wholly 


Shakespeare  and   Sophocles  297 

1 
edifying.  I  use  the  word  advisedly;  though  I  arn 
glad  to  be  aroused  by  tragedy,  I  want  not  to  be 
left  unsettled  but  composed.  Of  King  Lear  I  say 
nothing;  the  last  act  is  obviously  a  blunder.  I  can 
imagine  nature  in  her  stubborn  courses  stumbling 
into  some  such  blind  and  bloody  shambles;  that  is 
not  the  difficulty  —  the  untowardness  of  insentiency. 
But  I  can  not  recognize  in  Lear  the  logic  or  raison 
d'etre  of  the  genre,  the  bare  technical  congruity  of 
the  literary  "  form  "  which  is  evident  even  in  the 
most  brutal  Zolaesque  impressionism.  A  box  is  a 
box  whatever  it  does  or  does  not  contain,  and  is 
possessed  of  a  kind  of  mechanical  integrity  as  such. 
But  the  deaths  of  Cordelia  and  her  father  are  im- 
pertinent not  only  morally  but  theatrically;  they 
are  extrinsic  and  superfluous.  It  is  impossible  to  take 
them  up  into  one  scheme  with  the  preceding  acts 
of  the  play;  they  do  not  coalesce.  I  do  not  deny 
that  the  tragedy  has  its  grandeur,  as  stupendous  at 
moments  as  a  chaos  of  the  elements.  But  as  a 
whole,  it  is  inconceivable  on  its  own  showing.  And 
so  I  say  that  Shakespeare  has  blundered  somehow 
as  he  has  seldom  done  elsewhere  in  tragedy. 

To  a  certain  extent,  however,  Romeo  and  Juliet 
seems  to  me  another  case  in  which  he  has  failed  to 
carry  out  his  own  premises.  It  is  a  young  man's 
tragedy:  even  the  poetry,  splendid  as  it  is  in  pas- 
sages, and  the  admirable  humours  of  Mercutio  and 
the  nurse  are  immature  for  Shakespeare.  Under 
these  circumstances,  it  might  seem  unfair  to  require 
any  very  strict  moral  necessitarianism  of  its  author, 
if  such  were  Shakespeare's  way  in  any  case.  But  I 
should  have  liked  to  see  the  same  fatality  which 


298  Romance  and  Tragedy 

passes  through  Mercutio  find  its  mark  at  last  in 
hero  and  heroine.  For  the  sake  of  dramatic  effect  if 
nothing  more  Mercutio's  fate  should  prefigure  that 
of  his  friend.  But  Mercutio  dies  in  a  vain  skirmish. 
The  hostility  of  "  both  your  houses  "  loses  its  drive 
little  by  little  until  it  ceases  to  penetrate  the  play 
and  dwindles  into  a  mere  pretext  for  the  sorry  over- 
sight or  misunderstanding  which  is  actually  account- 
able for  the  catastrophe. 

But  the  failings  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  are  technical. 
As  an  illustration  of  the  indeterminateness  inherent 
in  "  natural  "  tragedy  Hamlet  stands  unrivalled,  as 
witness  the  proverbial  character  of  the  hero.  It 
has  all  the  points  of  a  primary  and  spontaneous 
romanticism  —  the  "  problematic  "  temperament, 
the  "  psychopathic "  doubt  and  dejaillance,  the 
"  picturesque  "  background,  the  "  morbid  "  atmos- 
phere, the  "  suggestive  "  treatment.  Think  what 
could  be  made  of  an  introspective  Orestes  with  a 
scruple,  and  what  an  illusion  of  profundity  and 
modernity  might  be  created  with  the  Electra  as  so 
transmogrified.  And  on  the  other  hand,  compare 
Bourget's  Andre  Cornells.  The  theme  is  virtually 
identical  with  that  of  Hamlet;  but  what  a  difference 
in  effect!  In  the  latter  the  remote  fantastic  setting 
of  feudal  life  and  customs;  the  legendary  castle  of 
Elsinore  with  its  heavy  mediaeval  shadow,  ghost- 
haunted  and  visionary;  the  arras-hung  apartments, 
the  barbaric  display  of  royalty,  the  adventurous  in- 
cidents, and  the  distant  echoes  of  the  outer  world, 
of  young  Fortinbras  and  his  marching  armies.  In 
Bourget's  novel,  on  the  contrary,  the  din  and  clatter 
of  a  nineteenth-century  city,  the  populous  streets, 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  299 

the  comfortable  houses  of  the  rich  and  idle,  the  in- 
trigue of  a  vitiated  society,  the  commonplace  of 
"  civilization,"  and  above  all  a  kind  of  French  clar- 
ity and  sharpness  and  assurance  quite  remote  from 
the  thick  and  foggy  sea  air  of  Denmark.  There  is  no 
question  about  it:  Hamlet  is  a  tale  of  human  fatuity, 
not  in  the  ancient  but  in  the  modern  sense.  It  is  not 
that  Hamlet  deliberates  to  kill  his  uncle;  he  is  well 
within  his  dramatic  rights  in  doing  so.  Nor  is  it  that 
he  does  actually  kill  his  uncle  before  he  is  through 
with  him;  that  also  is  his  dramatic  right.  It  is  the 
indifference  of  conscience  and  choice  —  of  every- 
thing save  coincidence  alone  —  in  the  final  result; 
it  is  the  affront  to  liberty  and  the  freedom  of  the  will 
in  that  finally  his  calculations,  his  delays  and  hesi- 
tations and  reluctances  should  all  go  for  nought  and 
that  he  should  find  himself  at  last  tricked  on  such 
frivolous  occasion  into  an  assassination  so  unpre- 
meditated, so  flippant  even,  as  hardly  to  bear  the 
character  of  voluntary  action  at  all.  How  uncon- 
scionable, and  yet  with  what  consummate  plausibil- 
ity it  is  carried  off!  It  makes  not  only  the  most  not- 
able example  of  Shakespearean  irony  but  quite  the 
most  "  interesting  "  tragedy  extant.  Small  wonder 
that  no  two  commentators  have  ever  agreed  as  to 
its  intention. 

Let  us  suppose  a  chorus  of  sententious  old  wise- 
acres, after  the  antique  fashion,  gaping  and  gossip- 
ing over  the  issues  of  the  action;  in  what  apothegm 
or  adage  do  you  suppose  they  would  sum  up  their 
impressions?  Horatio,  who  serves  as  a  kind  of 
epilogue,  speaks  of  it  as  a  skein 

"  Of  accidental  judgments,  casual  slaughters." 


300  Romance  and  Tragedy 

But  can  we  think  of  a  valedictory  more  inaccept- 
able  to  the  sober  wisdom  of  antiquity?  There  is  a 
phrase  of  Hamlet's  own  toward  the  end  of  his 
journey  —  an  expression  not  inconsistent  with  the 
spirit  of  the  play  —  "  the  readiness  is  all,"  which 
we  should  have  no  great  difficulty  in  imagining  a 
Greek  chorus'  elaborating  in  the  sense  of  Edgar  in 
King  Lear; 

"  Men  must  endure 
Their  going  hence,  even  as  their  coming  hither; 
Ripeness  is  all." 

It  offers  no  apology  for  the  excesses  of  a  conscience- 
less eventuality;  but  it  supplies  a  rule  of  conduct  — 
not  wholly  foreign  to  the  Greek  temper  —  in  a 
world  of  careless  and  improvident  possibilities,  so 
that  it  is  not  astonishing  that  Shakespeare  should 
have  repeated  the  sentiment  in  the  two  plays  of  his 
which  are  of  all  the  most  unpunctual  and  inscrutable. 
Macbeth,  on  the  contrary,  while  thoroughly 
Shakespearean  and  "  natural,"  seems  to  present  the 
least  difficulty  to  the  anxious  aphorist.  For  my  part 
—  to  take  my  slight  exception  at  once  —  I  am  not 
wholly  satisfied  with  the  interpretation  which  sees 
in  Macbeth  himself  but  an  evil-doer  justly  punished 
for  his  crimes,  though  such  an  explanation,  as  a 
"  probable  opinion  "  and  relatively  true  for  the  final 
scenes,  may  serve  Its  purpose  as  a  rough  and  ready 
means  of  disposing  of  the  play.  But  if  such  is  the 
case,  why  has  not  the  playwright  launched  the  pro- 
tagonist as  a  criminal  after  the  fashion  of  Richard 
III?  The  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  strongly  I 
feel  that  Shakespeare  intended  to  represent  a  good 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  301 

man  gone  wrong  —  so  that  to  a  certain  extent  Mac- 
beth is  by  way  of  being  a  pendant  to  Hamlet. 

Of  course,  the  motives,  sentiments,  and  circum- 
stances of  the  two  tragedies  are  very  different.  But 
as  far  as  the  mere  argument  is  concerned,  Macbeth 
is  Hamlet  with  the  inhibition  left  out.  He  is  sus- 
ceptible, like  Hamlet,  to  "  supernatural  "  sugges- 
tion; he  is  equally  irresolute  —  "  infirm  of  purpose," 
his  wife  calls  him.  No  doubt,  his  profession, 
as  well  as  his  later  insolence,  tends  to  obscure 
the  perception  of  his  weakness;  but  a  man  may  be 
a  courageous  soldier  and  an  indecisive  character, 
while  indecision  is  not  unusually  violent  in  extrem- 
ity—  as,  indeed,  it  is  with  Hamlet.  In  addition, 
if  Macbeth  has  not  Hamlet's  introspection,  he  has 
something  of  the  latter's  abstraction,  and  —  I 
think  it  is  Professor  Bradley  who  has  noted  the 
fact  —  not  a  little  of  the  Dane's  native  amiability 
and  courtesy,  when  in  his  right  mind.  Need  I  call 
attention  to  similarities  of  setting  —  the  castellated 
background  and  the  air  of  ominous  dubitation  which 
are  common  to  the  earlier  scenes  of  both  plays? 
So  close  is  the  likeness  at  instants  that  one  is 
tempted  to  read  in  Macbeth's  career  the  secret  of 
Hamlet's  fate,  had  the  latter  done  similar  violence 
to  his  conscience  —  as  some  commentators  seem  to 
wish  —  at  the  promptings  of  an  equally  questionable 
apparition. 

But  it  is  at  this  point  that  the  dramas  diverge. 
Macbeth  differs  capitally  from  Hamlet  in  his  reac- 
tion to  opportunity  —  a  parcel  of  demented  old 
women  on  a  heath,  an  ambitious  wife,  an  old  man, 
and  a  throne.    That  is  the  pity  of  it.    Nevertheless 


302  Romance  and  Tragedy 

he  incurs  the  odium  of  his  villainy;  and  since  he 
has  come  to  be  what  he  is,  there  is  no  denying  the 
justice  of  his  damnation.  It  is  at  least  the  conse- 
quence of  his  own  choice.  In  this  respect  the  trag- 
edy has  a  Sophoclean  relevancy,  which  I  would  not 
belittle,  though  I  must  add  immediately  that  there 
seems  to  be  no  higher  motivation  for  his  delin- 
quency than  chance  and  tide.  And  is  it  not  true, 
by  the  way,  that  to  the  consistent  "  modern  "  artist 
the  punishment  of  evil-doing  is  a  "  conventional  " 
rather  than  a  "  natural  "  climax?  But  then  the 
modern  artist  is  not  particularly  consistent. 

Of  Othello  I  have  little  to  say;  it  is  self-explana- 
tory. And  that,  perhaps,  is  the  reason  that  in  spite 
of  its  greatness  it  is  one  of  the  least  "  interesting  " 
and  "  suggestive  "  of  Shakespeare's  great  plays.  A 
famous  general,  a  noble  though  simple  nature,  with 
occasional  flashes  of  poetic  fancy  and  language, 
who  stifles  his  bride  in  the  back  room  of  a  barracks 
in  a  fit  of  jealousy  and  forthwith  stabs  himself,  be- 
cause he  has  fallen  in  the  practice  of  a  malignant 
villain  —  the  police  court  is  too  full  of  such  mis- 
adventures to  permit  a  doubt  of  their  authenticity. 
Nevertheless,  my  spirit  is  disquieted  as  well  by  the 
deaths  of  Desdemona  and  Othello  as  by  those  of 
Cordelia  and  Lear,  Ophelia  and  Hamlet. 

My  role  has  been  an  ungrateful  one;  it  is  so  much 
easier  and  pleasanter  to  praise  an  author's  merits 
and  excuse  his  faults  than  to  apportion  the  defects 
of  his  qualities.  But  to  this  latter  task  my  subject 
has  confined  me  far  longer  than  I  could  wish.  There 
is  one  reproach,  however,  that  I  would  not  willingly 
incur.     I  would  not  be  thought  to  imply  that  the 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  303 

closet  is  more  than  a  kind  of  appellate  court  for 
tragedy.  The  court  of  first  instance  is  the  theatre. 
And  it  may  be  that  under  the  latter  jurisdiction  my 
dicta  seem  weak  and  fanciful.  In  stagecraft 
Shakespeare  has  never  been  excelled.  The  diffi- 
culties of  Hamlet  are  figments  of  the  student  and 
dissolve  in  the  acting;  the  spectator  knows  nothing 
of  them.  The  "  double  time  "  of  Othello  is  a  prob- 
lem of  the  study,  not  of  the  stage.  Nevertheless, 
while  the  text  is  not  the  play,  it  should  be  capable 
of  withstanding  a  certain  sort  of  scrutiny.  Though 
it  want  complete  verisimilitude  —  a  verisimilitude 
which  perhaps  no  reading,  however  "  visual,"  can- 
wholly  supply,  it  ought  to  evince  the  writer's  prin- 
ciples —  for  he  wrote  it  after  all.  And  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  he  may  test  his  manuscript  impres- 
sions in  the  theater,  we  have  the  opportunity  to  test 
our  theatrical  impressions  by  the  text.  I  know  that 
the  line  is  hard  to  draw  between  legitimate  cross- 
examination  and  captious  inquisition;  but  I  have 
tried  to  keep  well  within  bounds  by  sticking  to  the 
more  obvious  issues  of  literature. 

Obviously,  there  are  two  sources  of  literary  in- 
terest —  the  likeness  or  the  image  and  the  idea, 
corresponding  with  the  two  kinds  of  subject  —  fact 
or  "  nature  "  and  truth  or  import.  A  regard  for 
the  latter  presupposes  a  recogition  of  the  former; 
but  a  concern  for  the  former  does  not  necessarily 
imply  a  sense  for  the  latter.  At  the  same  time,  it 
is  probable  that  a  devotion  to  import  may  incline 
to  an  accommodation  or  "  arrangement  "  of  actu- 
ality, just  as  an  absorption  with  actuality  leads  to 
a  neglect  of  significance.    The  vehicle  or  agency  of 


304  Romance  and  Tragedy 

likeness  is  imitation  or  representation;  of  truth,  in- 
terpretation. What  Aristotle  had  in  mind  in  defin- 
ing poetry  as  an  imitation  I  do  not  pretend  to  say. 
I  would  merely  suggest  that  the  term  was  traditional 
and  that  to  a  youthful  art  or  criticism  the  securing 
of  a  recognizable  likeness  to  the  subject  is  a  matter 
of  first  and  disproportionate  importance,  on  which 
account  the  term  imitation  has  been  supplanted  by 
representation  agreeably  with  the  increased  facility 
of  the  artist.  Still  even  at  that,  I  fancy  from  Aris- 
totle's own  words,  as  when  he  calls  tragedy  more 
philosophical  than  history,  that  his  imitation  was 
less  an  imitation  of  reality  than  of  ideality,  of  fact 
than  of  truth.  But  however  that  may  be,  I  have 
no  intention  of  using  the  word  otherwise  than  in  its 
ordinary  compass. 

Where  the  source  or  subject  of  literary  interest 
corresponds  with  this  process  of  reproduction  or 
exhibition,  the  gratification  will  consist  in  recog- 
nition; otherwise  in  comprehension  and  illumina- 
tion. On  the  part  of  the  author,  the  one  demands 
an  act  of  perception,  which  may  be  characterized  as 
emotional  and  ethical;  the  other,  an  act  of  intuition, 
which  I  will  not  call  philosophical  lest  it  be  con- 
founded with  metaphysics,  but  rather  moral  —  yes, 
I  will  go  so  far  as  to  call  it  religious  also.  It  was 
not  an  accident  that  the  greatest  tragedy  ever  pro- 
duced was  of  a  distinctly  religious  strain.  There  is 
something  more  required  for  the  production  of 
great  tragedy  than  an  eye  for  "social"  values: 
there  must  be  divinity  in  it  somewhere. 

On  the  one  hand,  the  aim  of  literature  can  hardly 
reach  beyond  the  enhancement  of  actuality,  whether 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  305 

emotional  or  sensational  —  "  scientific  "  Zola  would 
call  the  latter;  its  highest  achievement  will  consist 
in  eliciting  all  the  "  human  "  or  in  registering  all  the 
"  interesting  "  manifestations  which  the  subject  is 
capable  of  yielding.  That  the  human  degenerates 
into  the  animal  and  the  interesting  into  the  shock- 
ing is  of  no  great  consequence  to  the  later  practi- 
tioners of  the  arts  of  realism  and  naturalism.  On 
the  other  hand,  literature  will  aim  at  creating  what 
Goethe  calls  the  illusion  of  a  higher  reality  by  in- 
forming its  subject-matter  with  moral  relevance  and 
consistency,  —  the  business  of  the  dramatist  being 
to  produce,  in  the  diversity  and  confusion  of  sense, 
a  distinct  type  or  expression  of  human  significance. 
There  is  no  higher  verisimilitude  than  that  of  truth ; 
"  documentation "  is  ineffectual  in  comparison. 
Where  the  informing  spirit  of  moral  and  religious 
significance  is  absent  —  either  because  the  author's 
vision  is  dull  or  is  distracted  by  the  importunities 
of  fact  —  the  work,  taken  as  a  whole,  seems  sin- 
gularly dense,  abstruse,  and  incommunicative.  It 
comes  to  resemble  some  substantial  physical  forma- 
tion or  impersonal  aspect  of  matter  —  a  great  body 
of  water  reflecting  the  landscape  of  its  shores  with 
an  effect  profound,  scenic,  and  non-committal. 

And  so  it  is  that  for  all  his  "  depth  "  Shakespeare, 
as  compared  with  Sophocles,  is  at  once  the  more 
reserved  and  the  more  suggestive.  The  remark  is 
true  of  the  whole  movement  which  he  heads.  While 
the  ancient  is  the  more  disinterested  and  expressive, 
the  modern  is  the  more  curious  and  exciting.  I  have 
tried  to  show  how  equivocal  are  Shakespeare's 
denouements,  either  because  they  are  reluctant  to 


306  Romance  and  Tragedy 

pronounce  a  verdict  or  else  because  they  turn  out  to 
be  conventional  and  specious  when  regarded  as  solu- 
tions. At  the  same  time,  a  performance  which  fails 
to  conclude,  may  still  raise  the  question  and  raise 
it  in  a  thoroughly  arresting  manner.  To  be  sug- 
gestive it  is  necessary  only  that  the  writer  should 
be  himself  "  suggestible  "  —  that  he  should  be  sen- 
sitive to  outward  influences  and  should  model  his 
drama  directly  upon  his  impressions;  for  inasmuch 
as  experience  is  provocative  in  proportion  to  its 
immediacy,  that  literature  will  be  the  most  sugges- 
tive which  comes  nearest  to  writing  itself.  Such 
automatism  we  are  accustomed  to  glorify  as  "  in- 
piration."  In  short,  suggestion  is  a  character  of 
indetermination,  which  is  in  turn  apotheosized  with 
the  epithet  "  infinite."  A  cloud  may  hint  a  thous- 
and things  —  a  whale,  a  camel,  a  face,  a  wall  of 
battlements,  a  range  of  mountains;  but  let  it  sub- 
side into  a  single  positive  shape,  if  it  will,  and  it 
ceases  to  be  portentous.  A  corner  is  only  the  more 
mysterious  for  being  obscure;  the  "  wonder  "  varies 
directly  with  the  uncertainty.  As  far  as  Shakes- 
peare is  a  piece  of  nature,  his  "  magic  "  leaves  us  in 
the  end  very  much  where  life  itself  leaves  us  and  with 
very  much  the  same  sense  of  mirage. 

Among  all  the  many  emotions  inspired  by  this 
mirage  of  actuality,  as  distinguished  from  Goethe's 
illusion  of  a  higher  and  significant  reality,  there  is 
one  so  indicative  of  modern  literature,  as  of  modern 
life,  that  it  deserves  a  few  minutes'  consideration 
to  itself.  Perhaps  the  most  persistent  and  invari- 
able sentiment  which  a  direct  and  inconsiderate 
contact  or  "  communion  "  with  nature  leaves  with 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  307 

the  "  communicant  "  —  shall  I  say?  —  is  that  inef- 
fable longing,  that  insatiable  and  aimless  desire,  that 
"  homesickness  of  the  soul  "  which  we  have  learned 
to  call  nostalgia.  Like  the  tedium  vitce  of  Tacitus, 
the  adv/jLta  of  Chrysostum,  the  acedia  of  the  mon- 
astic Dark  Ages,  it  represents  the  inevitable  reaction 
of  the  human  spirit  to  the  complete  inanity  and  va- 
cuity of  a  phenomenal  and  inconsequential  existence. 
But  unlike  them,  it  is  no  mere  symptom  of  an  oc- 
casional or  sporadic  disease  or  even  epidemic,  but 
rather  of  a  chronic  lesion  in  modern  life  and  art. 
Nor  is  the  modern  nostalgia,  like  its  older  counter- 
parts, a  mood  of  simple  disillusion  —  an  awakening 
from  the  beguiling  delusions  of  sleep  to  a  realization 
of  the  cold,  drab  desolation  and  bereavement 
of  day.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  mood  of 
deception  —  often  of  perverse  and  voluntary  decep- 
tion, of  forced  faith  in  impotent  simulacra  and 
spurious  oracles.  It  is  an  invariable  penalty,  for 
instance,  of  the  pursuit  of  "  beauty  "  for  its  own 
sake,  and  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  melancholia  and 
distemper  —  or  "  temperament  "  as  we  like  to  hear 
it  named  —  which  vexes  every  "  artist  "  who  will 
hear  of  nothing  but  his  art. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  feeling  of  nostalgia, 
though  familar  enough  to  common  experience  in 
connection  with  landscape,  is  most  noticeably  dra- 
matic, perhaps,  in  the  presence  of  a  crowd:  there 
is  nothing  so  baffling,  nothing  quite  so  hopelessly 
convincing  of  the  inability  of  man  to  find  satis- 
faction in  the  mere  spectacle  and  raw  material  of 
life.  Here  on  the  pavement  has  happened  together 
in  some  way  a  number  of  people.    They  are  to  all 


308  Romance  and  Tragedy 

appearance  individuals,  separate  and  distinct  enti- 
ties. Each  moves  by  what  we  call  his  own  volition; 
independently  of  the  others  he  is  going  about  his 
own  business.  What  that  business  is  you  do  not 
know;  nor  do  you  know  his  past  or  future  any  bet- 
ter than  his  present.  And  more  bewilderingly  still, 
he  has  concealed  in  his  head,  in  that  hollow  box  of 
bone  which  houses  his  mind,  all  kinds  of  motives, 
impulses,  interests,  many  of  which,  we  are  told,  he 
is  unconscious  of  himself.  To  every  one,  including 
himself,  this  "  poor  inch  of  nature  "  is  little  better 
than  a  riddle.  And  to  add  to  the  confusion,  all 
these  secretive  little  cellular  beings,  these  intensely 
animated  and  vivacious  automata  seem  to  have 
nothing  in  common.  As  far  as  can  be  detected  there 
is  no  principle  of  association,  no  formula  or  equa- 
tion, no  single  expression  which  will  take  up  just 
these  atomies  here  present  and  bring  them  together 
into  a  system  and  account  for  their  presence  or  do- 
ings, their  concurrence  in  just  this  spot  in  just 
these  numbers  at  just  this  time.  They  have  no  com- 
mon denominator.  They  are  like  a  swarm  of  motes 
in  a  sunbeam:  the  flicker  in  and  out;  they  flit  and 
fade;  and  they  never  reassemble  identically  or 
simulate  again  the  same  set  or  combination  as  be- 
fore. They  unite  in  no  one  idea;  they  make  nothing 
but  a  phantasmagoria.  Such  is  the  throng;  it  is 
absolute  illusion  —  or  I  should  prefer  to  say  in  dis- 
tinction from  that  other  higher  illusion  of  law  and 
significance,  it  is  mirage. 

How  much  of  the  glamour  of  Shakespeare  and 
of  modern  poetry  as  a  whole  is  owing  to  this  mirage, 
it  would  be  hard  to  say  —  certainly,  a  great  deal. 


Shakespeare   and   Sophocles  309 

It  is  not  Greek:  at  least  when  it  appears  in  Greek, 
and  that  rarely,  we  speak  of  it  exceptionally  as 
romantic.  In  itself  it  is  an  evidence  of  imperfection, 
whatever  pleasure  we  may  receive  in  abandoning 
our  minds  to  it;  and  it  indicates  a  failure  to  dis- 
cover, amid  the  shows  of  things,  a  home  or  residence 
for  the  vagrant  spirit  of  man.  It  inspires,  first, 
nostalgia,  and  then,  satiety  and  distaste  and  skep- 
ticism until  succeeded  by  the  affirmation  of  a  higher 
and  more  purposeful  vision. 

Here,  as  far  as  revolutionary  romanticism  is  con- 
cerned, the  matter  might  be  left.  But  with  Shakes- 
peare in  the  case  it  is  necessary  to  enter  a  qualifi- 
cation. If  we  consider,  as  I  have  done,  that  what 
Shakespeare  was  most  apt  to  represent  is  the  muta- 
ble many,  the  absolute  illusion  of  the  throng,  with- 
out attempting  to  inform  it  further  than  is  essential 
to  herding  it  into  the  five  acts  of  a  play  —  though 
this,  to  be  sure,  requires  no  small  amount  of  con- 
trivance in  itself  —  if  we  suppose  that  at  best  he 
attempts  no  other  interpretation  than  this  fairly 
literal  translation  into  the  dramatic  genre,  respect- 
ing otherwise  the  broad  unconscious  indifference  of 
nature;  and  if  we  suppose  that  in  this  manner  he 
has  produced  the  most  startlingly  suggestive  pano- 
rama of  life  that  was  ever  unrolled  —  in  a  word, 
if  he  has  rendered  the  mirage  of  actuality  with 
almost  incredible  vividness :  —  still  we  must  add 
that  there  are  times,  and  those  by  no  means  infre- 
quent, when  he  rises  to  a  higher  altitude,  when  he 
gets  clear  of  all  this  lower  atmosphere  of  fog  and 
and  cloud  and  obscuration,  and  sees  the  world  for 
what  it  is  —  a  phantasm,  a  hollow  and  deceptive 


310  Romance  and  Tragedy 

show  in  spite  of  its  apparent  bulk  and  solidity.  He 
has  still  no  counsel  of  detachment,  no  pattern  of 
perfection  or  consummation;  but  at  least  he  un- 
masks and  discovers  it  for  what  it  is,  for  what  every 
supreme  philosophy  and  religion  has  taught  that 
it  is  —  a  vain  and  disquieting  shadow  thrown  upon 
mist  and  resolving,  like  a  little  vapour,  into  nothing. 
Such  is  the  sense  of  his  noblest  and  most  memorable 
passages : 

"  These  our  actors 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits  and 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air; 
And  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-capped  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,    all    which    it   inherit   shall   dissolve 
And  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind.    We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep." 

And  I  can  not  refrain  from  giving  myself  the  satis- 
faction of  the  following  quotation  also: 

"  To-morrow  and  to-morrow  and  to-morrow 
Creeps  in  this  petty  pace  from  day  to  day 
To   the  last  syllable   of  recorded   time, 
And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death.     Out,  out,  brief  candle! 
Life's  but  a  walking  shadow,  a  poor  player 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage 
And  then  is  heard  no  more;  it  is  a  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying   nothing." 


Shakespeare  and   Sophocles  311 

This  is  the  Shakespearean  skepticism.  And  it 
is  as  much  a  part  of  Shakespeare  as  his  irony  and 
his  nostalgia.  Like  them  it  is  born  of  the  mirage; 
but  it  has  the  advantage  of  puncturing  the  bubble, 
of  riddling  the  deception.  And  not  only  occasion- 
ally and  in  passages  of  this  extent,  but  in  brief 
snatches  also,  every  here  and  there,  like  momentary 
flashes  of  lightning,  stabbing  into  the  obscure  corners 
of  existence  and  lighting  up  their  vacancy  with  reve- 
latory glare,  plays  this  merciless  skepticism  of  the 
greatest  playwright  that  ever  undertook  to  stage 
this  show  of  earth.  There  is  no  firmament,  no  dis- 
tinct source  of  steady  and  beneficent  illumination 
to  infuse  the  troubled  scene  with  orderly  chiaro- 
scuro and  perspective  —  nothing  but  the  rocking  sea 
and  the  intermittent  lightning.  There  is  no  vision 
of  an  immutable  pole,  no  reassuring  intimations  of 
system  and  gradation.  His  inspiration  is  still  dis- 
persed among  the  several  moments  of  his  concep- 
tion and  is  inseparable  from  the  elements  in  which 
he  works.  His  ideas  are  immanent.  Every  case 
is  individual  and  exceptional;  and  his  "  art "  is 
essentially  "  descriptive."  Nevertheless  while  skep- 
ticism may  not  be  the  end,  it  is  the  beginning,  of 
wisdom;  it  confounds  both  matter  of  fact  and  com- 
mon sense,  and  lays  bare  the  imposture  whereby 
the  mirage  practises  upon  the  vulgar  credulity 
of  mankind,  pretending  to  reality  itself  when  the 
sole  reality  is  by  virtue  of  the  rational  intuition 
which  transcends  and  transforms  it. 


STRUCTURE   AND   STYLE 

ONE  OF  the  most  remarkable  achievements  of 
the  romantic  spirit  has  consisted  in  the  devel- 
opment of  a  literary  style  of  such  refinement,  elab- 
oration, and  subtlety  as  to  have  drawn  attention 
more  and  more  to  itself  and  away  from  the  bolder 
and  solider  properties  of  design  and  composition 
characteristic  of  classicism.  While  it  can  not  be 
said  that  every  classic  revival  has  centered  directly 
upon  Sophocles  in  the  same  manner  that  every 
romantic  reaction  has  been  made  to  hinge  upon 
Shakespeare,  yet  it  is  generally  felt,  and  felt  cor- 
rectly, that  the  former  is  as  truly  the  pole  of  the 
one  as  the  latter  is  of  the  other;  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  is  just  this  relative  importance  and  predom- 
inance of  style  as  compared  with  structure  which 
measures  the  distance  between  the  two.  In  spite  of 
the  felicity  of  Sophocles'  expression  —  a  felicity 
which  after  all  consists  in  the  happy  adaptation  of 
language  to  idea  —  it  is  evidently  by  his  conception 
that  he  imposes  —  the  perfect  proportion  of  parts, 
the  large  outline  of  his  general  plan,  the  great  indi- 
visible block  of  his  meaning.  While  it  is  impossible 
to  read  Shakespeare  without  being  struck  by  his 
extravagance,  inequality,  and  confusion  —  as  im- 
possible as  it  is  not  to  be  thrilled  and  dazzled  by 
the  brilliancy  and  splendour  of  those  frequent  sal- 
lies on  which  it  would  seem  that  he  must  have  relied, 

312 


Structure  and  Style  313 

in  the  exuberance  of  his  genius,  to  redeem  the  im- 
pression of  his  faulty  and  careless  economy. 

Even  among  living  literatures  those  prevailingly 
romantic  are  comparatively  indifferent  or  insensible 
to  structure,  or  composition  in  the  broader  sense, 
as  might  be  shown  by  a  comparison  of  English  and 
German  with  French;  while  the  distinctive  effect 
of  lyric  poetry,  which  is  virtually  a  creation  of 
romanticism,  has  been  purchased  by  a  sacrifice  of 
form  to  manner.  Indeed,  it  can  hardly  have  escaped 
the  attention  of  the  most  casual  observer  that 
poetry  as  a  whole  has  been  completely  transformed 
in  the  sense  of  the  romantic  evaluations  of  the  last 
century.  The  old  architectural  analogies  and  fig- 
ures of  speech,  the  plastic  tropes  and  metaphors  — 
heirlooms,  many  of  them,  of  antiquity  —  by  which 
literature  was  once  assimilated  with  the  arts  of  con- 
struction and  design,  have  been  gradually  sup- 
planted by  terms  of  music  and  painting,  arts  of 
execution  and  expression,  almost  exclusively.  It  is 
no  longer  the  ground-plan,  the  fond,  the  general 
lines,  the  sage  proportions,  the  ordonnance  of  a 
work  for  which  the  critic  reserves  his  enthusiasm; 
it  is  the  "  purple  patches,"  the  "  tone-colour,"  the 
"  word-painting,"  the  "  visualization,"  the  "  melo- 
dies "  or  "  harmonies,"  the  "  instrumentation."  The 
term  playwright  has  no  further  sense;  the  dramatist 
is  a  maker  of  tableaux;  while  the  poet  composes 
symphonies  or  sonatas  or  even  "  diapasons  of 
colour." 

Under  the  circumstances,  since  the  distinction  is 
not  only  admitted  but  approved  already,  it  may  not 
be  profitless  to  trace  the  consequences  of  such  a 


314  Romance  and  Tragedy 

preference  for  style  or  structure,  in  the  hope  to 
surprise  the  peculiarities  of  disposition  in  which  it 
has  its  root,  together  with  the  characteristics  of  the 
literature  corresponding  and  its  effects  upon  the 
consciousness  of  the  reader. 

Now,  literary  organization  is,  on  the  face  of  it, 
so  largely  a  matter  of  selection  that  there  is,  if  any- 
thing, a  temptation  on  the  part  of  its  students  to 
underrate  other  factors  of  equal  or  even  greater  im- 
portance. So,  to  William  James  mental  organiza- 
tion, of  which  literary  organization  is  only  the  con- 
summation, seems  to  consist  almost  exclusively  in 
the  exercise  of  choice.  And  if  only  I  may  add  the 
qualification  conscious,  I  shall  be  disposed  to  go  a 
long  way  with  him.  For  conscious  selection  implies 
a  purpose  or  aim,  which  in  turn  implies  an  idea  or 
perception  of  significance;  and  literary  "  creation  " 
is  marked,  to  my  mind,  by  the  presence  of  just 
such  an  informing  idea  or  principle.  The  fact  is 
plain.  It  is  impossible  to  choose  materials  of  any 
sort  without  knowing  what  is  to  be  done  with  them; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  know  what  is  to  be  done 
with  them  without  understanding  them,  not  merely 
as  materials  but  also  as  self-subsisting  realities  or 
ends  in  themselves.  Choice  involves  intent,  the 
prevision  of  an  end  and  the  apprehension  of  the 
means  whereby  it  may  be  attained  and  the  will  to 
reach  it;  and  not  only  that,  but  above  all  and  prin- 
cipally, it  presupposes  the  sense  in  which  the  whole 
affair  is  to  be  taken,  inclusive  of  the  subject  con- 
sidered in  the  light  of  an  independent  value  or  source 
of  interest.  Hence  organization,  involving  conscious 
selection,   involves   a  discrimination   in   favour   of 


Structure  and  Style  315 

certain  means  and  against  certain  others,  a  prefer- 
ence for  certain  matter  over  other  matter  in  view  of 
a  definite  appraisal  or  judgment  of  the  content  as 
a  theme  of  general  human  moment  or  concern. 

This,  then,  is  what  makes  the  essential  difference 
between  literature  and  life;  and  it  is  on  this  account 
that  the  appreciation  of  art  and  the  appreciation 
of  nature  rest  upon  entirely  different  bases.  While 
our  current  consciousness  is  usually  flat  and  colour- 
less and  tame,  a  genuine  work  of  art  is  enhaloed 
with  a  kind  of  nimbus  or  aureole;  it  irradiates  a 
charm  or  glamour  of  its  own.  It  inspires  a  con- 
viction of  finality  and  completeness.  In  short,  liter- 
ature produces  a  characteristic  illusion,  Goethe's 
illusion  of  a  higher  reality;  while  our  current  con- 
sciousness produces  no  illusion  whatever. 

"  As  Esmond  crossed  over  to  his  own  room  .  .  .  and 
turned  to  enter  in  at  the  low  door,  he  saw  Lady  Castle- 
wood  looking  through  the  curtains  of  the  great  window 
of  the  drawing-room  overhead,  at  my  Lord  as  he  stood 
regarding  the  fountain.  There  was  in  the  court  a  pecul- 
iar silence  somehow;  and  the  scene  remained  long  in 
Esmond's  memory: — the  sky  bright  overhead;  the 
buttresses  of  the  building  and  the  sundial  casting  a 
shadow  over  the  gilt  memento  mori  inscribed  under- 
neath; the  two  dogs,  a  black  greyhound  and  a  spaniel 
nearly  white,  the  one  with  his  face  up  to  the  sun,  and 
the  other  snuffing  amongst  the  grass  and  stones,  and  my 
Lord  leaning  over  the  fountain,  which  was  bubbling 
audibly." 

This  is  not  nature ;  it  is  not  even  consciousness  — 
it  is  not  actuality  at  all.    It  is  illusion,  the  illusion 


316  Romance  and  Tragedy 

of  a  higher  reality,  the  effect  of  significance.  And 
in  every  case  where  the  organization  of  material  is 
anywhere  near  complete,  this  sense  of  significant 
illusion  with  its  penetrating  and  satisfactory  charm 
is  invariably  disengaged.  It  does  not  occur  in  our 
quotidian  consciousness  because  that  consciousnesss 
is  not  thoroughly  organized  and  hence  is  not  thor- 
oughly significant.  Only  when  man's  life  is  mastered 
by  some  great  and  overpowering  purpose  which  dom- 
inates for  the  time  his  whole  being,  does  he  find 
anything  like  this  sense  of  illusion  in  every-day 
events.  A  memory,  however,  is  in  its  way  a  work 
of  art  and  produces  an  impression  of  art  just  to  the 
extent  that  it  ceases  to  be  reproductive  and  becomes 
representative.  It  is  rudimentary  literature,  to  be 
sure,  but  still  it  is  literature  —  literature  with  struc- 
ture but  no  style.  Indeed,  the  mood  of  reminiscence 
is  the  mood  of  literature.  And  as  such  recollection 
is  sharply  marked  off  from  sensation;  it  is  partially 
organized.  But  since  this  topic  is  fundamental, 
since  it  lies  across  the  very  threshold  of  literature, 
it  is  worth  while  to  make  a  special  effort  to  illustrate 
it  —  and  the  more  simply  the  better  even  at  some 
risk  of  over-obviousness. 

Everybody  recognizes  that  any  work  of  art  —  and 
for  the  present  I  will  continue  to  include  literature 
under  that  head  —  is  made  up  of  a  number  of  differ- 
ent elements  or  constituents  all  combined  to  produce 
a  single  large  effect.  Now,  it  is  impossible  to  put 
together  even  two  or  three  components,  let  alone  a 
number,  without  some  purpose  to  serve  as  a  guide 
in  doing  so.  Even  a  carpenter  can  not  get  his  boards 
together  into  a  box  unless  he  foresees  the  box  into 


Structure  and  Style  317 

which  they  are  going.  And  his  aim  or  purpose,  as 
is  equally  patent  in  so  plain  a  case,  includes  also  a 
just  appreciation  of  the  value  or  possibilities  of  the 
elements  to  be  composed.  In  so  far  it  is  critical; 
it  involves  a  criticism  of  his  material.  The  carpen- 
ter would  be  farcical  if  he  tried  to  make  a  box  out  of 
pebbles  or  bricks  —  and  no  less  so  if  he  used  ma- 
hogany or  Circassian  walnut  for  fence  rails  or 
clothes  posts.  He  might  still  be  a  good  joiner,  but 
he  would  betray  his  inability  to  see  anything  in  his 
stuff  or  to  make  anything  out  of  it;  he  would  prove 
himself  to  be  a  man  of  no  ideas.  The  competent 
cabinet-maker,  then,  has  two  notions  —  one  of  his 
genre,  the  box;  the  other  of  his  stuff.  The  first  is 
a  model  or  pattern,  the  latter  an  idea  proper. 

In  other  words,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  two 
questions  which  are  commonly  confounded  and  in- 
terchanged, sometimes  innocently  but  sometimes 
mischievously.  The  one  is  a  question  of  trade  or 
technique;  the  other  a  question  of  art  or  criticism. 
While  every  art  has  its  trade  or  craft,  it  is  a  mis- 
take, though  a  frequent  one,  to  assume  that  the 
trade  or  craft  which  underlies  the  art,  is  in 
so  far  forth  an  art  of  itself.  For  the  competent 
cabinet-maker  the  two  questions  may  be  phrased 
in  this  way:  What  kind  of  chest  will  this  par- 
ticular lumber  make?  and,  What  will  this  chest 
make  of  this  particular  lumber?  If  a  playwright 
be  substituted  for  the  cabinet-maker,  however,  these 
questions  will  read  even  more  pertinently:  What 
kind  of  tragedy  will  this  subject-matter  make?  and, 
What  will  this  tragedy  make  of  this  subject-matter? 
The  former  is  a  question  of  genre;  it  is  raised  and 


318  Romance  and  Tragedy 

answered  by  the  type.  It  is  purely  technical  and 
banausic,  and  goes  with  the  trade  or  craft  of  writing 
alone;  and  it  is  of  comparatively  little  moment  or 
importance  to  anyone  save  the  litterateur  himself, 
and  to  him  only  in  the  capacity  of  artisan.  In  spite 
of  the  general  publicity  given  it  by  certain  loqua- 
cious romanticists  of  the  third  or  fourth  generation, 
like  Flaubert  (indeed,  it  is  this  kind  of  talk  which 
makes  them  seem  so  disconcertingly  amateurish  for 
all  their  appalling  sophistication)  this  problem  be- 
longs to  the  study  and  the  atelier;  it  is  "  shop."  The 
second  is  the  literary  and  artistic  question  par  ex- 
cellence —  What  will  this  tragedy  make  of  this  sub- 
ject-matter? —  as  it  is  the  critical  question  also.  It 
is  concerned  for  import  and  significance.  It  asks, 
not  what  are  the  aesthetic  possibilities  of  this  sub- 
ject in  terms  of  style  and  execution,  but  what  is 
its  intelligible  interest  as  representative  of  idea  and 
life.  And  the  answer  is  addressed  directly  to  life 
and  its  issues. 

To  be  sure,  the  stuff  in  which  the  writer  works 
is  not  identical  with  that  of  the  cabinet-maker  or 
the  artist;  but  the  same  argument  holds  for  both. 
The  matter  out  of  which  the  novelist  or  the  dramatist 
is  trying  to  make  his  story  or  his  play  is  the  matter 
of  experience.  The  words  are  merely  symbolic; 
they  are  not  the  stuff  of  his  creation;  they  are  but 
signs  of  the  realities  with  which  he  has  to  do,  mere 
notations,  and  may  even  be  dispensed  with  concep- 
tually, as  in  memory.  Properly  and  exactly,  his  ele- 
ment is  life;  and  before  he  can  determine  it  in  this 
sense  or  that,  he  must  have  some  definite  idea  of  its 
significance  —  not  a  vague  impression  of  immensity 


Structure  and  Style  319 

and  confusion,  a  swimming  of  the  head  or  a  ringing 
of  the  ears,  a  sensation  of  intoxication  and  exalta- 
tion, of  bemusement  and  wonder  —  but  (dare  I  say 
so  in  this  generation?)  a  kind  of  philosophy,  at 
least  a  few  fundamental  principles,  if  not  of  life  as 
a  whole,  at  all  events  of  that  portion  of  it  with 
which  he  habitually  deals.  And  since  his  whole 
organization  is  dependent  upon  this  idea  or  prin- 
ciple, it  must  come  to  constitute  the  informing  spirit 
of  his  work. 

The  pretension  of  modern  romanticism  in  its  more 
"  realistic  "  and  "  naturalistic  "  activities  to  find 
the  informing  idea  or  principle  of  literature  in  "  na- 
ture "  itself  so  that  literature  has  nothing  more  to 
do  conceptually  than  just  to  shepherd  the  facts 
into  the  fold  of  some  genre  or  other  —  this  assump- 
tion is  so  preposterous  to  unspoiled  common  sense 
as  hardly  to  bear  statement,  much  less  analysis.  In- 
deed, it  is  hard  to  account  for  the  currency  of  such 
a  belief,  so  inconsequent  and  pointless  does  actu- 
ality appear  in  its  ordinary  manifestations  —  a  whir 
of  disorderly  sensations,  a  smear  of  forms  and 
colours,  a  jangle  of  unmusical  sounds.  Try  to  di- 
gest your  impressions  for  the  course  of  a  day  — 
the  odds  and  ends  of  humanity  you  have  met,  the 
sputters  of  broken  talk  you  have  overheard  and 
taken  part  in,  the  momentary  vexations  and  annoy- 
ances you  have  suffered,  the  passing  emotions,  the 
flutter  of  spirits,  the  shivers  and  goose-flesh,  the 
lapses  of  attention  —  and  yet  the  minutes  of  such 
experience  should  be  the  perfect  realism,  if  minutes 
were  but  a  genre  as  Friedrich  Schlegel  tried  to  make 
them. 


320  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Of  course,  we  have  come  to  believe,  some  of  us, 
though  on  very  questionable  evidence  and  as  much 
for  the  sake  of  saving  our  face  as  for  any  better 
reason,  that  nature,  taken  as  a  whole,  has  a  sort  of 
higher  unity  in  a  transcendental  idea  of  some  kind. 
We  like  to  think  that  there  is  a  universal  term  or 
expression  which  embraces  and  reconciles  and  ex- 
plains away  all  contradictions  and  incompatibilities. 
To  an  infinite  intelligence,  we  suggest,  all  this  con- 
fusion and  bewilderment  to  which  we  are  subjected, 
would  straighten  out  and  present  a  symmetrical 
appearance  of  graduation  and  regularity.  But  un- 
fortunately we  do  not  know  any  such  scheme;  we 
merely  feign  it,  we  can  not  detect  it  for  ourselves. 
We  have  never  yet  been  able  to  reduce  history  to 
science  because  we  have  never  been  able  to  discover 
any  rule  to  which  human  life  as  a  whole  conforms, 
though  just  now  some  of  us  are  much  given  to  mum- 
bling economic  rigmarole,  while  others  of  us  are 
rather  inclined  to  suspect  with  M.  Bergson  that  vi- 
tality is  mainly  irrational  and  unintelligible  after 
all,  little  as  we  like  his  view  of  the  relative  impor- 
tance of  that  portion  of  it  or  his  conclusions  with 
regard  to  the  consequences  of  such  a  faith.  With 
the  physical  universe  our  mechanics  have  done  a 
little  better,  if  we  are  willing  to  disregard  certain 
discrepancies  and  overlook  certain  gaps  and  lapses. 
And  yet  we  have  not  banished  one  spectre  —  a 
doubt  of  the  competence,  if  not  of  the  relevancy,  of 
this  inhumane  science  and  of  its  ability  to  read  the 
riddle  of  man. 

And  yet  suppose  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  we 
are  on   the  right  track  nowadays  —  suppose  that 


Structure  and  Style  321 

there  is  an  ultimate  mechanical  or  mathematical  or 
scientific  principle  —  if  any  one  can  imagine  such 
a  thing  —  under  which  all  nature  and  life  are  sub- 
sumed; even  then  such  an  idea  would  be  too  vast, 
too  distended  to  serve  as  the  constituent  principle 
for  just  a  single  isolated  work  of  art  or  literature. 
It  would  transcend  the  infinitesimal  circumscriptions 
of  experience  with  which  we  deal  and  which  are  too 
restricted  even  to  enter  the  law  of  averages  —  it 
would  not  make  sense  of  a  crowd.  As  far  as  the 
author  is  concerned,  he  would  be  just  where  he  was 
before.  Pack  nature  into  your  containers  as  much 
as  you  please,  it  is  nature  still;  you  have  altered  its 
figure  but  you  have  not  made  sense  of  it.  And 
until  you  do  so,  it  is  neither  literature  nor  art. 

I  am  ashamed  to  have  dwelt  so  long  on  such  a 
subject;  it  all  seems  so  simple  and  self-evident.  My 
excuse  must  be  the  perversity  with  which  the  whole 
matter  has  been  misrepresented  in  the  interests 
of  a  conception  of  art  so  narrow  and  partial  and 
false  as  to  have  brought  the  very  name  of  art  itself 
into  disrepute  among  the  serious  to  a  degree  un- 
paralleled since  the  days  of  Plato.  Nevertheless,  in 
spite  of  these  confusions,  it  ought  to  be  clear  to  an 
eye  of  any  discernment  at  all  that  the  structure 
demanded  by  literature  requires  insight  or  vision  or 
intuition  —  the  ability  to  find  a  meaning  or  signifi- 
cance for  the  data  of  experience;  for  without  such 
a  key  there  can  be  no  conscious  discrimination  or 
selection  of  material,  no  point  in  handling  it  above 
the  bare  dexterity  of  technique,  which  makes  for 
artistry,  not  art.  And  further,  since  the  subject  of 
literature  is  principally  human  nature,  it  is  obvious 


322  Romance  and  Tragedy 

that  this  intuition  upon  which  the  author  depends 
for  the  inspiration  of  his  work,  must  be  a  rational 
and  moral  intuition  —  not  a  sensational  or  emotional 
one;  for  all  other  considerations  apart,  a  sensational 
or  emotional  inspiration  would  never  support  a 
closely  concatenated  fabric  of  sustained  significance. 
Such  an  inspiration  must  be  one  capable  of  enlisting 
the  services  of  the  intellect  as  against  the  spasmodic 
impulses  of  an  irrational  instinct. 

It  follows,  then,  that  if  we  would  discover  the 
author's  meaning,  we  must  look  to  his  design,  for 
there,  if  anywhere,  it  resides.  Whatever  signifi- 
cance a  piece  possesses  is  to  be  sought  in  the  con- 
stitution of  that  piece  as  a  whole  and  not  in  the 
several  members  taken  singly.  It  is  the  plan  or 
plot,  as  Aristotle  implies,  which  is  the  index  to  the 
writer's  vision.  And  it  is  this  body  of  meaning  for 
which  the  name  form  should  be  reserved,  if  the 
word  is  to  have  any  literary  application  at  all.  For 
language  or  expression  such  a  term  is  evidently  a 
misnomer;  it  is  appropriate  only  when  used  of  the 
configuration  of  elements  as  fixed  by  the  presiding 
conception.  The  form  is  determined  by  the  frame, 
which  is  the  schema  of  the  idea. 

Style,  however,  is  quite  another  affair;  and 
though  it  has  its  own  function  too,  still  it  is  the 
organ  of  idea.  Properly  and  in  a  correct  balance  of 
faculties,  it  presupposes  intuition.  Only  where  con- 
ception leaves  off  does  style  enter  to  carry  out  its 
decrees.  Its  office  is  to  translate  the  idea  into  lan- 
guage. It  is  an  interpreter  and  is  not  itself  respon- 
sible for  the  oracles  it  utters  under  the  influence  of 
the  vision.     It   is   quite  possible   that  an  author 


Structure  and  Style  323 

should  compose  his  work  without  ever  thinking 
about  style.  Racine  appears  to  have  framed  his 
tragedies  first  in  prose;  there  is  among  his  papers 
an  act  or  so  of  an  Iphigenia  in  Tauris  outlined  in 
this  manner.  Sophocles  is  reported  to  have  called 
a  tragedy  of  his  completed  when  he  had  only 
thought  it  through  wordlessly.  Goethe  wrote  the 
whole  of  his  Iphigenia  in  prose  before  turning  it 
finally  into  verse.  In  short,  style  is  nothing  more 
than  the  practical  procede  by  which  some  one  por- 
tion of  the  design  is  realized  or  executed.  The 
phraseology  may  be  very  curious,  very  pretty, 
very  brilliant;  but  the  impressions  which  it  pro- 
duces, unless  correlated  into  an  intelligible  pattern, 
are  only  partial  and  disparate  at  best.  And  what 
is  worse,  they  will,  if  exaggerated,  distract  attention 
from  the  main  concern  and  attract  it  to  themselves 
to  the  detriment  of  the  idea. 

Still  the  relationship  between  conception  and  style 
is  wonderfully  intimate  inasmuch  as  style  belongs 
to  the  trade  upon  which  literature  is  reared  —  the 
trade  of  letters.  And  since  language  is  the  sole 
medium  for  the  communication  of  ideas,  it  is  style 
upon  which  the  author  must  rely  exclusively  to 
bring  out  point  by  point  the  significance  upon  which 
his  illusion  depends,  and  above  all  to  produce  the 
requisite  sensible  effect  from  moment  to  moment. 
This  latter  obligation,  to  take  care  of  the  sensible 
effect  of  the  moment,  is  the  primary  duty  of  style, 
as  it  is  the  primary  duty  of  structure  to  take  care 
of  the  meaning  of  the  subject.  This  is  the  original 
and  first-hand  contribution  of  style  to  illusion,  and 
it  is  inimitable.    For  this  reason  the  finest  poetry  is 


324  Romance  and  Tragedy 

untranslatable.  The  general  conception,  the  theme, 
the  intention  of  poetry  may  indeed  be  reproduced 
in  one  way  or  another;  and  from  these  sources  it  is 
not  impossible  for  one  who  is  himself  potentially  a 
poet  to  recreate  the  characteristic  illusion  of  the 
original  from  the  beginning.  But  in  as  far  as  the 
illusion  depends  upon  the  appreciation  of  the  proper 
sensible  notes  seriatim,  translation  is  wholly  in- 
adequate. As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  always  unsuc- 
cessful in  detached  passages;  and  it  is  the  more 
unsuccessful  where  the  imaginative  fusion  is  the 
greater.  The  German  translation  of  Shakespeare  is 
a  remarkable  performance;  one  has  only  to  turn 
to  Ducis'  to  see  how  remarkable  —  about  the  Ger- 
man language  there  is  a  kind  of  inchoateness  which 
makes  it  an  unusually  good  vehicle  for  translation. 
And  yet  with  all  its  merits,  it  leaves  something  un- 
matched when  compared  sentiment  by  sentiment 
with  Shakespeare:  — 

"  Mir  war,  als  rief  es:  Schlaft  nicht  mehr!  Macbeth 
Mordet  den  Schlaf!  Ihn,  den  unschuldigen  Schlaf; 
Schlaf,  der  des  Grams  verwor'n  Gespinnst  entwirrt." 

The  last  line  is  a  marvellous  bit  of  rendering:  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  it  means  just  the  opposite  of 
what  the  English  seems  to  mean,  it  comes  the  near- 
est of  any  single  line  of  translation  that  I  know  to 
catching  the  sentimental  thrill  of  the  original.  And 
yet  weigh  it  with  the  English  phrase  by  phrase  — 

"  Methought  I  heard  a  voice  cry,  Sleep  no  more! 
Macbeth  does  murther  sleep,  —  the  innocent  sleep, 
Sleep  that  knits  up  the  ravell'd  sleave  of  care  "  — 


Structure  and  Style  325 

and  there  is  a  difference  of  timbre  which  I  can  not 
describe  but  which  is  perceptible  enough.  No; 
style,  together  with  the  sensible  modulation  of  which 
it  has  charge,  is  inimitable  —  and  just  so  much  of 
the  significant  illusion  too. 

To  state  succinctly  the  case  of  style  in  relation 
to  structure,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  indispensable  as 
style  is  in  executing  the  details  of  conception,  it 
should  none  the  less  take  its  cue,  even  as  a  sensible 
exponent,  from  the  theme  or  plan;  for  what  the 
phraseology  of  an  author  discovers  is  only  a  suc- 
cession of  distinct  traits  which  are  in  themselves 
intransitive  and  receive  their  determination  solely 
from  their  association  or  fusion  in  a  common  design, 
as  characteristics  inhere  in  a  character.  Style,  in 
short,  is  an  affair  of  the  phrase;  it  is  a  strain  which 
fills  the  ear  for  an  instant  and  dies  away  to  be 
succeeded  by  another  equally  impermanent.  What 
it  does  is  to  render  in  the  fitting  sentimental  key 
a  single  effect  called  for  by  the  motive  or  idea.  The 
interest  results  from  the  synthesis  of  all  these  par- 
ticulars. But  their  fusion  requires  that  the  mo- 
ments should  dissolve  or  melt  into  the  solution. 
Hence  a  special  or  extraordinary  accentuation  of  the 
separate  strokes  —  anything  exaggerated  or  ornate 
as  well  as  anything  merely  odd  or  erratic  in  the 
style  impairs  the  illusion,  as  it  disintegrates  the 
form. 

Important  as  they  are,  the  consequences  which  I 
have  been  discussing  are  not  the  sole  consequences 
of  structure  by  any  means.  In  addition,  design  has 
an  intellectual  as  well  as  an  imaginative  aspect. 
And  it  is  the  cultivation  of  structure  in  this  sense, 


326  Romance  and  Tragedy 

without  vision  or  insight  to  inspire  and  spiritualize 
it,  which  is  responsible  for  the  rather  grim  and  for- 
bidding air  of  intellectualism  characteristic  of 
pseudo-classicism.  In  this  aspect  form  itself  be- 
comes a  matter  of  technique  —  a  branch  of  the  trade 
of  authorship.  It  is  confined  to  the  notion  of  a  more 
or  less  methodical  organization  or  incorporation  of 
members  into  a  common  body.  Differentiation  of 
parts  or  organs  and  integration  of  functions  be- 
comes the  criterion  of  the  successful  product.  And 
just  as  the  health  of  the  human  system  inheres,  not 
in  this  and  that  organ,  but  in  their  integration,  so 
the  virtue  of  the  literary  composition  lies,  not  in  the 
parts  or  even  in  the  summation  of  the  parts,  but  in 
their  coordination  and  coherence.  It  is,  therefore, 
essential  that  the  writer  who  devises  the  work  and 
the  reader  who  peruses  it,  should  be  able  to  appre- 
ciate this  congruity.  But  the  perception  and  en- 
joyment of  relationships  is  an  intellectual  exercise. 
It  requires  of  the  writer  the  peculiar  ability  to 
discriminate  among  a  crowd  of  discrete  details  im- 
portuning his  attention  simultaneously  and  the 
peculiar  skill  to  dispose  or  digest  his  selection  into 
a  scheme  or  plan;  while  on  the  part  of  the  reader 
it  requires  the  same  faculty  only  in  lesser  degree  — 
besides  the  feat  of  holding  them  all  together  in  a 
single  combination.  Hence  literary  construction 
presumes  a  certain  amount  of  mental  effort,  varying 
with  the  severity  of  the  organization.  It  is  quite 
feasible  to  teach  composition,  as  divorced  from 
vision.  Any  one  with  intelligence  can  learn  to  put 
his  work  together  creditably,  if  he  wants  to  badly 
enough  —  every  educated  Frenchman  can  do  so  — 


Structure  and  Style  327 

though  it  is  doubtful  whether  every  intelligence 
possesses  the  insight  which  alone  makes  composition 
significant,  or  can  acquire  the  style  which  alone  will 
make  it  expressive.  The  one  calls  for  great  power 
of  divination,  the  other  for  great  sensibility;  and 
these  are  rare  and  special  gifts,  their  alliance 
amounting  to  something  like  genius. 

At  all   events,   the  conclusion   is   clear.     Since 
structure,   considered   technically,   lies   within   the 
scope  of  intellect,  a  writer  whose  character  is  pre- 
ponderantly intellectual   will   naturally  stress   the 
technique  of  composition  above  style  and  expres- 
sion.   He  will  be  likely  to  prefer  a  clean,  tidy,  defi- 
nite, and  regular  outline  to  verbal  charm  or  grace. 
And  if  his  disposition,  in  addition  to  being  of  an 
intellectual  cast  and  delighting  in  the  working  out  of 
combinations  and  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends, 
the  coordination  of  parts  and  the  comprehension  of 
wholes,  is  also  endowed  with  moral  intuition  to  di- 
vine the  human  import  of  his  subjects;  then  will  he 
incline  to  value  design  superlatively,  not  only  for 
its  own  sake,  but  as  the  scaffolding  of  a  rational 
illusion,  whose  sensuous  elaboration  he  will  confide 
to   the  sympathetic   instrumentality   of   style.     In 
other  words,  since  in  the  balance  of  literature  de- 
sign is  the  legislative  and  style  the  executive  agency, 
it  results  that  the  presiding  authority  of  a  sane  and 
well-found  literature  will  be  intuitive  and  intellec- 
tual; it  will  blend  insight  and  reason.    Such  a  liter- 
ature will  not  be  uncompromisingly  intellectual  by 
any  means,  for  it  will  be  tempered  by  inspiration; 
but  it  will  be  orderly,  intelligible,  and  significant, 
permeated  through  all  its  pores  with  the  illusion  of 


328  Romance  and  Tragedy 

truth  or  reality  — a  solid,  substantial,  self-sufficient 
creation  of  the  imagination,  cosmic  and  substantive 
amid  the  chaotic  rioting  of  sense.  Such  is  the  char- 
acter of  that  noblest  monument  of  human  genius, 
the  tragedy  of  Sophocles  —  and  the  secret  of  its 
permanency  —  as  it  is  the  character  in  relative  de- 
gree of  every  literature  to  which  the  designation 
classic  is  properly  applied.  And  such  is  the  ratio- 
nale of  the  classic  preference  for  the  plastic  and  the 
architectonic. 

In  contrast  with  this  massive  unitary  effect,  in 
which  subject  counts  for  so  much,  the  effects  of 
style,  as  I  have  already  indicated,  are  severally  in- 
complete and  partial,  comparable  technically  with 
the  dressing  of  stone  or  the  chiselling  of  statuary. 
As  is  admitted  in  the  figures  of  speech  affected  by 
their  devotees,  their  affiliations  are  less  architectural 
than  artistic  in  the  limited  English  sense  which  has 
always  been  disposed  to  confine  art  to  painting  — 
colourful,  for  the  most  part,  and  rhythmic;  decora- 
tive or  at  all  events,  accentual.  They  impart  warmth 
and  tone  and  splendour  to  the  work  of  the  stylist; 
they  prick  out  strongly  the  high  lights;  they  bear 
witness  to  the  writer's  eye  for  appearances;  they 
magnetize  the  reader's  attention  and  flatter  his 
senses  like  bits  of  glass  in  a  kaleidoscope  or  the 
pulses  of  a  melody  —  but  they  have  no  sequence,  no 
coherence;  they  are  without  a  reason  save  as  they 
belong  in  a  composition.  In  themselves  they  are  an 
index,  not  of  mind,  but  of  mood.  What  they  meas- 
ure are  the  author's  sensibilities  and  susceptibilities. 
Free  of  logic  and  volition  they  have  only  to  follow 
his  temperament  —  the  instinctive  response  of  his 


Structure  and  Style  329 

nature  to  sensuous  and  emotional  stimulation.  In 
piquant  or  poignant  phrase  they  recall  the  prickle 
of  sensation,  the  tingle  of  feeling  without  responsi- 
bility for  the  merits  of  either: 

"  Old,  unhappy,  far-off  things, 
And  battles  long  ago." 

That  is  the  very  immediacy  of  impression;  the  sig- 
nificance of  it  consists  in  no  general  idea  but  is  con- 
crete and  inherent  in  the  sentiment,  as  it  were  an 
intrinsic  and  specific  property  of  the  thing  itself,  a 
component  part  of  the  perception.  Hence  its  charm 
is  intimate  and  inexplicable,  like  that  of  an  admired 
face  which  can  not  be  recollected  satisfactorily  but 
must  be  sought  to  again  and  again.  That  is  style; 
and  there  is  no  great  passage  of  poetry  which  does 
not  owe  its  magnificent  isolation,  like  this,  to  style 
and  style  alone.  But  its  character  is  evident;  it  is 
the  pathos  of  the  passage,  a  pathos  owning  no  obli- 
gation to  the  reason  or  the  will,  which  stirs  the 
reader;  and  all  the  while  there  is  a  little  rustle,  as 
it  were,  among  the  memories  of  sense  and  their 
residues,  as  though  he  had  but  just  turned  away 
from  some  landscape  or  other  spectacle  of  nature 
which  was  still  troubling  his  consciousness.  It  is 
an  aesthetic  effect  —  haunting,  nostalgic,  and  itself 
unhappy. 

Is  it  necessary  to  multiply  examples?  Whereas 
the  writer  of  insight  and  intelligence  inclines  to 
make  a  convincing  and  comprehensive  whole  of  his 
subject  because  he  understands  it  and  sees  his  way 
through  it,  while  the  logical  and  formal  intellect 
busies  itself  with  the  coordination  and  consolidation 


330  Romance  and  Tragedy 

of  the  parts  into  a  consistent  and  coherent  body 
or  organization;  the  writer  of  sensibility,  on  the 
contrary,  excited  by  the  sensual  effluences  of  nature 
and  dizzied  by  the  shifting  panorama,  the  flickering 
cinema  of  experience  unrolling  before  the  eyes  like 
"  a  tremulous  wisp  constantly  reforming  itself  on 
the  stream "  —  such  a  temperament  is  bound  to 
turn  from  the  severe  abstractions  of  the  creative 
imagination  to  the  cultivation  of  style  because  it  is 
possible  by  fastidious  refinements  of  phrase  to  pro- 
duce a  kind  of  linguistic  iridescence  corresponding 
to  the  shimmering  surface-play  of  impressions  which 
makes  the  main  interest  and  gratification  of  his 
conscious  life. 

And  this,  I  suppose,  is  the  explanation  of  the 
modern  and  romantic  cult  of  style;  for  romanti- 
cism is,  first  and  foremost,  a  literature  of  the  senses 
and  the  emotions,  of  the  blood  and  the  nerves,  im- 
patient of  the  control  of  the  inward  monitor  — 
le  maitre  interieur,  in  Fenelon's  phrase  —  and  eager 
to  discredit  its  authority.  About  such  a  literature, 
with  its  pretention  to  banish  the  tedium  vitce  forever, 
there  circulates  a  draught  of  exhilaration  and  expan- 
siveness  which  recommends  it  to  the  young,  the 
ardent,  and  the  intemperate  in  every  generation. 
Beside  the  intent  and  purposeful  discipline  of  classi- 
cism it  poses  as  indulgently  broad  and  tolerant.  In 
competition  with  the  graces  of  the  stylist  who 
charms  by  the  richness  and  profusion  of  his  effects 
without  much  anxiety  for  their  consistence,  the  pre- 
cision of  the  classicist  with  his  conscientious  ad- 
herence to  principle  is  at  the  disadvantage  of  ap- 
pearing meagre,  even  sterile  at  times,  just  as  the 


Structure  and  Style  331 

formality  of  a  Greek  temple  may  seem  austere  and 
parsimonious  in  contrast  with  the  extravagance  of 
a  Gothic  cathedral.  Between  the  judicious  frugal- 
ity incident  to  form  and  the  lavishness  and  caprice 
of  nature  there  exists  an  evident  incompatibility. 
Life  is  so  abundant,  so  prodigal  and  licentious  that 
the  attempt  to  reduce  it  to  lean  and  comely  pro- 
portions is  impossible  without  a  vast  amount  of 
excision,  simplification,  and  correction.  For  the 
sake  of  order  and  measure  the  classicist  must  sur- 
render something;  and  he  prefers  to  surrender 
what  is  of  least  moment  to  idea  —  the  discrete, 
the  adventitious,  the  exceptional  —  whatever  re- 
fuses to  focus  and  converge  and  articulate  —  in 
short,  multiplicity  and  divarication. 

Of  this  sort  of  literary  economy  Greek  tragedy 
remains  the  aptest  illustration.  In  conception  and 
structure  it  corresponds  as  nearly  as  literature  may 
to  the  type  of  the  Greek  temple.  Its  purport  is 
unmistakable.  Its  design  is  so  simple  as  to  be  clear 
at  a  glance;  even  the  chorus  fails  to  disconcert  it. 
It  contains  only  the  emotion  proper  to  the  subject. 
And  as  a  result  it  leaves  the  strongest  impression  of 
any  drama  ever  produced.  The  effect  is  perfectly 
definite  and  final.  When  a  play  is  ended,  the  matter 
is  settled.  The  memory  is  filled  with  a  single  image, 
the  consciousness  with  a  single  theme,  the  mind  with 
a  single  decision. 

But  such  a  result  is  at  odds  with  anything  like 
comprehensiveness  of  subject-matter  or  treatment 
—  it  is  intent,  compact,  instant;  while  breadth, 
whether  of  content  or  handling,  runs  to  amorphous- 
ness  and  distention.    Take  a  novel  of  Thackeray's 


33 2  Romance  and  Tragedy 

or  Dickens'  —  The  Newcomes,  for  example,  which 
undertakes  to  represent  London  society  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  century,  that  is,  a  modern  and  volu- 
minous subject;  and  the  clear,  firm  contours  which 
characterize  Sophocles'  drama  are  impossible.  The 
outline  of  such  a  novel  must  be  elastic,  supple,  fluid 
—  as  winding  and  sinuous  as  an  indented  coast;  it 
must  be  capable  of  indefinite  expansion  like  a 
pouch  or  pocket.  Consider  the  length  of  time  cov- 
ered by  such  an  action,  the  multitude  of  characters 
entangled  with  it,  the  wealth  of  incident  included. 
And  then  remember  that  a  Greek  tragedy  dealt  with 
only  five  or  six  persons,  that  it  accounted  for  only 
a  single  moment  of  their  lives,  that  it  had  to  do  with 
only  one  sequence  of  episodes.  How  much  easier 
to  knead  a  few  ingredients  like  these  into  a  shapely 
loaf  than  to  fashion  a  cake  out  of  Thackeray's 
material!  Or  more  accurately,  how  much  more 
difficult  to  reduce  a  teeming  and  plethoric  subject  to 
these  narrow  and  punctual  dimensions!  Indeed,  it 
is  hardly  correct  to  speak  of  such  a  novel  as  having 
a  form  at  all;  it  has  only  a  kind  of  rhythm,  a  pul- 
sation from  one  incident  to  the  next.  And  while 
the  later  novel  has  been  influenced  by  science  and 
the  drama  to  a  straiter  and  more  methodic  struc- 
ture, it  has  diminished  its  content  pari  passu,  and 
without  ceasing  to  be  romantic  has  become  only 
more  realistic  in  its  strict  preoccupation  with  "  na- 
ture "  and  its  idiomatic  detail. 

Clearly,  then,  Greek  tragedy  does  not  practise 
this  admirable  thrift  without  what  is,  from  the 
modern  point  of  view,  something  of  a  sacrifice.  It 
slights  a  great  many  aspects  of  fact  which  popular 


Structure  and  Style  333 

taste  has  come  to  hold  in  a  kind  of  superstitious 
awe  as  guarantees  of  reality.  In  particular,  it  fails 
to  make  very  much  of  the  characteristic  provoca- 
tiveness  of  actuality.  Many  of  those  feelings  of 
unresolved  and  motiveless  perplexity,  amazement, 
and  consternation  which  we  require  of  tragedy  be- 
cause they  seem  to  us  the  essence  of  experience 
are  wanting  to  the  Greek.  We  must  suppose  that 
life  as  such  went  on  for  Sophocles  very  much  as  it 
does  for  us  —  in  the  same  clutter  and  at  the  same 
loose  ends.  We  may  picture  the  crowd  jostling 
him  on  the  street,  the  grimy  beggar  or  the  greasy 
demagogue  thrusting  an  equally  unlovely  face  of 
solicitation  into  his,  with  here  and  there  a  still  figure 
of  philosophy  musing  disinterested  and  unregarded 
amid  the  hubbub  of  "  practical  "  interests;  we  can 
imagine  the  clash  of  opinion,  the  cross-purposes, 
passions,  and  suspicions  of  party  politics  which 
made  up  the  public  life  of  "  democratic  "  Athens 
—  we  may  think  of  the  more  tousled  aspects 
of  life  as  present  to  him  as  to  us.  But  to 
this  daily  distraction  his  drama  has  remained 
impervious.  To  be  sure,  a  good  deal  of  the  im- 
pertinence of  common  reality  has  worked  its  way 
into  Euripides,  but  greatly  to  the  detriment  of  his 
significance  and  integrity.  The  issue  can  not  be 
dodged.  In  order  to  dispose  experience  structurally 
at  all,  in  conformity  with  the  constitution  of  dis- 
course, it  is  necessary  to  reject  altogether  a  great 
part  of  the  detail  to  which  actuality  is  indebted 
for  its  piquancy,  and  to  admit  only  such  particulars 
as  are  capable  of  taking  place  in  the  permanent 
organization  of  consciousness.     What  is  unstable, 


334  Romance  and  Tragedy 

indefinite,  fugitive  must  be  passed  over  or  set  aside 
as  incapable  of  definition  or  fixation.  All  those  dim, 
uncertain  exaltations  and  depressions,  those  name- 
less apprehensions  and  premonitions,  those  inde- 
terminate stirrings  and  impulses  which  strain  our 
attention  and  warp  our  judgment  —  all  these  fumes 
and  vapours  of  the  brain,  many  of  them  somatic, 
the  classicist  is  satisfied  to  ignore;  they  are  neither 
constitutive  nor  expressive.  In  brief,  his  literature 
is  something  more  than  a  succession  of  twitches  and 
flashes.  Xor  is  it  a  mere  derivative,  drawing  its 
interest  and  justification  from  some  other  source 
and  having  a  purely  analogical  value  in  terms  of 
such  another  variable.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  an 
ideal,  self-sustaining  and  self-sufficing  fabric  built 
up  gradually  and  regularly  in  the  imagination  from 
materials  strained  and  sifted  out  of  experience  for 
that  purpose. 

Conversely,  the  writer  who  looks  upon  literature 
as  a  function  of  life,  immediately  responsible  to  ex- 
istence and  the  impressions  peculiar  thereto,  as  it 
were  a  kind  of  sensorium  for  the  collection  and  regis- 
tration of  vital  stimuli  —  such  an  author  will  set  his 
ambition  in  the  conviction  which  he  may  succeed 
in  producing  of  the  characteristic  waywardness  and 
"  wonder  "  of  nature.  In  this  view  the  idiosyncra- 
tic, as  possessed  of  superior  actuality,  tends  to  be- 
come the  exclusive  subject  of  representation.  Indi- 
vidualization, not  typification,  is  the  desideratum. 
The  strange,  the  irregular,  the  unusual  engross  a 
correspondingly  larger  share  of  attention.  The  ex- 
ception rather  than  the  principle  comes  to  be  the 
rule.     Form  as  a  rationale  —  as  aught  but  a  me- 


Structure  and  Style  335 

chanical  nexus  like  a  string  around  a  parcel,  is  con- 
sidered an  impertinence.  Metre,  rhythm,  not  to 
say  the  genre  as  such,  are  disqualified  one  after  the 
other.  The  laws  of  association  are  abrogated;  rev- 
erie usurps  the  place  of  rational  intuition  or  vision. 
And  with  the  dissolution  of  the  idea,  style  en- 
croaches farther  and  farther  upon  the  logical  prov- 
ince of  composition  —  until  finally,  defeated  in  its 
attempt  to  reproduce  all  the  exquisite  thrills  of  sen- 
tiency,  it  abandons  the  struggle  altogther,  and 
ceasing  to  be  expressive  at  all,  becomes  avow- 
edly symbolic  and  suggestive. 

Of  late  the  disorganization  has  proceeded  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  have  crowded  pretty  nearly  the 
last  vestiges  of  mind  from  English  poetry  —  which 
has  ceased  to  be  humane  or  moral  —  and  has  left 
next  to  nothing  for  criticism  to  take  hold  of.  But 
to  those  of  us  for  whose  youth  Tennyson  was  the 
poet  of  romantic  sentiment,  he  will  still  seem  the 
natural  illustration  of  the  tendency.  In  him,  at 
least,  the  process,  while  sufficiently  advanced  to  be 
conspicuous,  is  not  too  far  gone  to  be  intelligible  — 
at  worst  there  is  always  a  modicum  of  sense  remain- 
ing; and  from  him  I  will  illustrate  it:  — 

"  Then  saw  they  how  there  hove  a  dusky  barge, 
Dark  as  a  funeral  scarf  from  stem  to  stern, 
Beneath  them;  and  descending  they  were  ware 
That  all  the  decks  were  dense  with  stately  forms, 
Black-stoled,  black-hooded,  like  a  dream  —  by  these 
Three  Queens  with  crowns  of  gold;  and  from  them  rose 
A  cry  that  shivered  to  the  tingling  stars, 
And,  as  it  were  one  voice,  an  agony 


336  Romance  and  Tragedy 

Of  lamentation,  like  a  wind  that  shrills 

All  night  in  a  waste  land,  where  no  one  comes, 

Or  hath  come,  since  the  making  of  the  world." 

Now,  the  point  to  which  I  would  call  attention,  is 
that  these  last  three  verses  — 

"  a  wind  that  shrills 
All  night  in  a  waste  land,  where  no  one  comes, 
Or  hath  come,  since  the  making  of  the  world  "  — 

these  three  lines,  I  say,  have  no  rational  connection 
or  reasonable  association  with  the  theme.  They  do 
not  constitute  a  part  of  the  significant  illusion,  the 
illusion  of  a  higher  reality,  as  such;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  create  a  kind  of  mirage  —  an  extremely 
vivid  one  but  one  below  the  horizon  of  the  subject 
nevertheless.  They  catch  just  a  kind  of  sudden 
sentiment  that  the  sound  of  mourning  might  pos- 
sibly have  provoked  in  the  spirit  of  some  musing 
on-looker,  hardly  in  that  of  an  intent  participant. 
In  this  sense  they  are  thoroughly  romantic:  they 
pick  out,  like  a  ray  of  sunlight, 

"  Kindling  the  cones  of  hills,  and  journeying  on," 

a  single  eccentric  detail  to  which  the  eye  of  the 
inattentive  traveler  is  immediately  diverted.  As  a 
whole,  the  effect  of  the  passage  is  not  that  of  vision 
proper  but  of  the  romantic  substitute,  reverie, 
where  the  mind  pursues  no  necessary  sequence  of 
ideas  but  is  seduced  from  one  image  to  another  by  a 
number  of  more  or  less  adventitious  and  arbitrary 
cues.    It  is  this  vagrancy  of  fancy  which  we  find  so 


Structure  and  Style  337 

pleasant  in  falling  asleep:  the  sounds  of  the  outer 
world  reach  us  remotely  and  vacantly  —  we  hear 
the  distant  clatter  of  hoofs  along  the  road,  the  drip- 
ping of  water  from  the  eaves,  the  barking  of  a  dog 
in  the  night,  the  untimely  crowing  of  a  cock;  but 
we  connect  no  definite  ideas  with  these  impressions; 
our  consciousness  floats  indolently  along,  with  an 
hypnotic  sense  of  levitation,  on  some  easy  current  of 
suggestion  which  they  happen  to  have  set  flowing, 
without  the  labour  or  responsibility  of  thought  or 
the  necessity  of  arriving  at  any  particular  conclu- 
sion. In  such  adumbrations  of  a  vague  and  phan- 
tasmal reality,  which  demands  little  in  the  way  of 
concentration  as  it  offers  little  in  the  way  of  con- 
tent, lies  the  secret  of  romantic  literature. 

"  Like  God,  whose  servants  they  are  [Our  Ladies  of 
Sorrow]  they  utter  their  pleasure,  not  by  sounds  that 
perish  or  by  words  that  go  astray,  but  by  signs  in  heaven, 
by  changes  on  earth,  by  pulses  in  secret  rivers,  heraldries 
painted  on  darkness,  and  hieroglyphics  written  on  the 
tablets  of  the  brain.  They  wheeled  in  mazes;  I  spelled 
the  steps.  They  telegraphed  from  afar;  I  read  the 
signals.  They  conspired  together;  and  on  the  mirrors 
of  darkness  my  eye  traced  the  plots.  Theirs  were  the 
symbols;  mine  are  the  words." 

This  is  the  romantic  mirage,  as  distinguished  from 
the  significant  illusion  of  classicism.  Under  the 
stimulation  of  a  style  which  has  cultivated  sug- 
gestion to  the  neglect  of  expression,  reminiscence  is 
aroused,  the  consciousness  is  suddenly  injected  with 
a  flood  of  sensuous  memories  and  presentments  — 
the  imagination  moves;  but  inasmuch  as  the  mind 


33&  Romance  and  Tragedy 

has  no  clear  conception  before  it,  the  imagination 
moves  aimlessly  and  without  creative  activity  or 
effect.  It  is  inspiration  of  a  sort  —  the  sort  which 
Nietzsche  has  designated  as  Dionysian  on  account  of 
the  prominence  of  these  very  characters  and  has 
assimilated  to  the  irresponsible  enthusiasm  of  in- 
ebriety. To  its  influence  is  largely  due  the  witchery 
of  modern  poetry;  it  is  responsible  for  what  Mat- 
thew Arnold  calls  "  the  magical  way  of  handling 
nature,"  — 

"  Or  magic  casements  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas  in  fairy  lands  forlorn  "  ; 

and  it  seems  to  be  the  animating  spirit  of  what  he 
understands  distinctively  as  "  style."  As  such  it  is 
the  achievement  of  English  literature  and  the  crown 
and  triumph  of  the  romantic  revival.  I  pass  over 
its  later-day  decadence,  its  final  divorce  from 
reason  and  conscience,  and  its  subsequent  inanity 
and  fatuousness  —  such  matters  belong  to  the  de- 
generation of  romance.  But  in  measure  and  at 
best,  it  must  be  rated  as  an  enrichment  of  literature 
in  general  and  of  poetry  in  particular  —  not  a  clear 
gain,  perhaps,  but  an  acquisition  without  which  we 
should  be  the  poorer;  for  within  limits  a  literature, 
like  a  race,  should  be  credited  with  the  variety  as 
well  as  with  the  perfection  of  its  types. 

But  I  have  said  as  much  as  my  subject  warrants. 
If  I  have  not  already  succeeded,  I  can  never  hope 
to  succeed,  in  showing  that  classicism  consists  in 
a  just  balance  or  equilibrium  of  the  faculties  under 
the  presidency  of  the  divinatory  reason  or  intuition 


Structure  and  Style  339 

and  that  whatever  tends  to  disturb  or  disrupt  this 
balance  is  romantic.  Hence  the  classicist  sets  great 
store  by  form  and  structure;  they  are  the  repre- 
sentatives and  trustees  of  order  and  proportion  in 
literature.  He  has  a  decided  intellectual  bent,  as 
witness  his  devotion  to  clear  ideas  and  his  care  for 
the  consolidation  of  part  with  part  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  his  materials;  but  the  severity  of  his  logical 
character  is  tempered  by  vision  or  insight,  which 
inspires  him  with  a  sympathetic  sense  for  the  human 
significance  of  his  subjects.  As  a  result  of  this  dis- 
position, he  inclines  to  a  marked  subdual  or  lower- 
ing of  the  parts  of  the  composition  or  to  such  a 
treatment  of  them  as  shall  indicate  that  they  are 
merely  members  of  an  association  from  whose  soli- 
darity they  draw  their  own  importance;  and  he 
leans  to  a  similar  handling  of  style  as  an  instrument 
of  thought,  for  the  attainment  of  an  ulterior 
rational  end.  In  like  manner  he"  is  conditioned  to 
the  simplification  and  contraction  of  actuality, 
whenever  fact  becomes  embarrassing  either  by 
reason  of  its  proliferation  or  obscurity.  The  classic 
tendency  is  towards  clarification  and  concentration. 
And  finally,  in  this  instinct  for  transparency  and 
definition,  and  in  the  consequent  avoidance  of  what- 
ever is  vague  and  diffuse,  the  classic  pretends  to 
convey  no  more  than  lies  within  the  ability  of  the 
author  to  understand  or  the  power  of  language  to 
represent;  it  is  expressive,  not  suggestive.  Its  aim 
is  to  create  a  significant  illusion  of  reality. 

Romanticism,  on  the  other  hand,  manifests  itself 
in  literature  by  an  emphasis  on  style  above  structure, 
because  the  romanticist  himself  delights  in  novelty 


34Q  Romance  and  Tragedy 

and  variety  of  detail  even  more  than  pertinence 
and  consistency,  and  it  is  possible  by  one  sort  of 
phrasal  ingenuity  or  another  —  the  "  exquisite  epi- 
thet," the  "  purple  patch  "  —  to  mimic  the  changing 
moods  of  nature  more  or  less  successfully.  The  ro- 
mantic temperament  is  sensuous  and  emotional;  it 
is  disposed,  if  anything,  to  magnify  its  impressions 
severally  in  the  interest  of  "  wonder  "  and  so  to  ex- 
aggerate the  apprehension  of  diversity  incidental  to 
its  subject-matter.  And  as  it  is  prompt  to  respond 
to  the  stimuli  of  experience,  so  it  is  eager  to  open 
as  wide  a  range  of  representation  as  possible.  As 
a  result,  romantic  literature,  in  comparison  with 
classic,  is  characterized  by  expansiveness  and  diffu- 
sion; it  appears  in  content  more  abundant  and 
variegated.  At  the  same  time,  it  loses,  as  though  in 
compensation,  much  of  the  classic  certainty  and 
penetration;  it  is  less  significant  and  intelligible.  In 
addition,  its  sentimental  instability  is  constantly 
urging  it  to  the  pursuit  of  the  uncertain,  even  the 
dubious,  until  in  its  curiosity  and  impulsiveness  it 
finds  itself  attempting  to  express  the  inexpressible. 
Hence  its  abuse  of  suggestion.  Its  ambition  is  the 
manifestation  of  "  life  "  and  the  emotions  proper 
to  it;  its  characteristic  feat,  the  creation  of  a  phan- 
tom or  mirage  of  actuality. 

All  modern  literature  is  preoccupied  with  fact; 
it  is  either  scientific  or  romantic.  The  most  alarm- 
ing symptom  of  romanticism  at  present  is  its  want 
of  mind.  No  one  can  read  our  current  belles  lettres 
after  those  of  the  preceding  century  without  being 
struck  by  their  intellectual  flaccidity.  In  subtlety 
and  acuteness  of  thought,  in  comprehension  of  hu- 


Structure  and  Style  341 

man  nature  and  tradition,  even  in  sheer  common- 
sense  and  plain  level-headedness,  to  say  nothing  of 
maturity  of  character,  the  writers  of  this  age  ap- 
pear like  children  beside  those  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  They  seem  to  have  no  moral  grasp  —  as 
Goethe  said  of  Friedrich  Schlegel,  no  inner  Halt. 
With  a  plausible  appearance  of  liberality  in  its 
programme  —  with  its  passionate  appeal  to  the 
instinct  of  individual  freedom  and  its  spirited  pleas 
for  breadth  and  tolerance,  romanticism  has  always 
been  cursed  by  its  impatience  of  discipline  and  re- 
straint and  its  indulgence  of  dissipation  and  irre- 
sponsibility. To  that  sense  of  enlargement  without 
which  life  is  a  drab  and  dusty  chronicle  there  are 
but  two  conceivable  means  —  dissipation  and  dis- 
cipline. That  the  former  is  the  more  "  natural  " 
and  spontaneous  may  be  granted.  It  is  the  way  of 
youth,  which  giving  free  rein  to  its  impulses  and 
feeding  on  self-deception,  revels  in  its  license  to  do 
as  it  likes.  But  the  other  is  the  way  of  understand- 
ing, which  leads  its  followers  through  carefulness 
and  control  to  self-possession  and  the  power  to  do 
as  they  will.  Between  these  two  states,  that  of 
effortless  abandonment  to  caprice  and  that  of  pur- 
poseful exertion  —  an  interval  which  measures  the 
difference  between  the  green  Goethe  and  the  ripe, 
the  Goethe  of  Werther  and  of  Iphigenie  —  lies  a 
limbo  for  him  before  whose  eyes  has  dissolved  the 
mirage  of  youth  —  a  period  of  nostalgia  and  skep- 
ticism ere  he  finds  himself  capable  of  the  higher 
and  significant  illusion  of  character  through  a 
settled  and  confirmed  habit  of  the  will  — 

rjdos   81a    edos 


?B- 


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